Howl
by badjujube
Summary: Bella abandons her maker and takes a journey through the dark underbelly of the 20th century, surfacing just long enough to betray the Cullen's secret and endanger their safety. Or did she? AU, dark themes. Complete.
1. Ghosts pt 1

"_**I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by**_

_**madness, starving hysterical naked,**_

_**dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn**_

_**looking for an angry fix…"**_

"_**Howl"**_

_**Allen Ginsberg**_

_**1956**_

You know, I noticed you as soon as I walked in the door. I'd never seen you in there before and it used to be one of my old haunts. Even though it was dimly lit, as such places are, I noticed when you came in. I love that old place, all dark floors, shiny from decades of dancing, standing, drinking. Red velvet walls whose shabby spots were covered by framed photographs of celebrities, bands and their forgotten companions.

Do you ever look at those old photographs of famous people and wonder who the women are with them? Different alluring dress for different eras; tall white boots and tall beehives for the sixties, curvy dresses and exquisitely made up cat's eyes for the fifties, you get the picture. Those women were desirable for a few nights or a few minutes, got their pictures taken with the latest member of the British invasion, the latest popular actor, sometimes even a novelist, if he was hip enough. Do you ever wonder what happened to those women? You can always find the musicians in Rolling Stone, even decades later, the most obscure actor or novelist can be found on Wikipedia or IMDB. The women are gone like a puff of smoke from the cigarettes everyone loved in those days. Do you think that their residue, like nicotine, coats the walls and ceilings of this club?

I digress, I wasn't talking about women, was I? I was talking about how I noticed you, with your Macbook and your designer glasses. You wouldn't have stood out to most people in a place like this. There must be a couple thousand guys in New York City who look like you, forty-something, tall, worn blazer and expensive jeans. I don't intend for that to sound insulting, I like the look. It's always been one of my favorites.

I was taking a risk, coming here, but I can be nostalgic, despite what my father would say. I was in town and I wanted to see my old stomping ground, observe the changes. People continue to give this place symbolic cultural value. They visit it because of what it used to be, a haunt for the hip, the famous, the talented. Now it's just a haunt for those who would make contact with the hip, the famous, the talented. There's this guy I know, Afton. He can touch an object and tell you it provenance. It's kind of a gift. He can tell you who made it, where it's been, who touched it. What would you give to be able to touch the bar, the floor and say "Jimi Hendrix was high here in 1967" or "Norman Mailer pounded on this bar in 1965 because he couldn't get served fast enough"?

Please bear with me if I meander to the point. I don't lose track of my thoughts; it's not that. I guess I want to set the stage for you. I want you to understand that although most of my life I've been the bad guy I am not without sentimentality. I'm going to tell you a story I've never told anyone.

Why you? Because you were there to see some ghosts and I can show them to you because I know who they are. Because I have a story to tell and you are clearly a collector of stories. Because you remind me of my brother, Edward. You look a little like him, although you're older. Did they call you something different when you were a boy? Nicky? Nicholas? People called me Bella when I was a girl but I have been called Isabella for many years now.

Did I mention that my brother and I hated each other from the start?

I came to East Village in 1954. I know I don't look old enough to have been here then but if you can accept that I know a guy that can identify the history of an object by touching it you can accept that I was in the East Village in 1954. Of course, it wasn't called that yet. It was still considered part of the Lower East Side. In the late 1940's it had begun to attract smart young men from St Louis and Paterson and working class drop-outs and deserters from places like Lowell and Salt Lake City. They met junkies and thieves in New York City. Some of them were already junkie and thieves when they got here.

You know your history; in 1954, Kerouac had already written "On The Road" although it would be another 3 years before it was published. Lucien Carr had already killed David Kammerer (and been helped to cover up the murder by Kerouac and William Burroughs). Allen Ginsburg was one year away from moving to San Francisco and writing "Howl". But Allen had already seen the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness and we were all crawling the streets looking for an angry fix.

I had come to New York City as the world's oldest orphan. Can you still be considered an orphan after you are no longer a minor? You can if you have no resources except an 18 year-old body and a desire to get the fuck out of the small town in Pennsylvania where you lived. With your father dead at the hands of an angry husband who just wanted the right to terrify his wife without the local police interfering and no mother to speak of my prospects were looking grim. I could have married one of the eager, baby-faced oil workers I had graduated from high school with but there's a big difference between being willing to have sex with a guy in the basement of your high school or behind the bleachers and wanting to spend the rest of your life looking up at his face. I decided I'd rather die than live that life. And I did, more than once.

Just like now, New York City was no joke for little girls from small towns. But I had a little bit of money and I was able to keep myself off the streets. I wasn't opposed to sleeping with a man if I could get something out of it but I was opposed to not having a choice about the guy. After a couple of weeks I met a graduate student named Peter who wasn't too bad to look at, had a great book collection and knew lots of interesting people.

"Interesting" in those days meant that they did heroin and talked about Sartre and jazz. It meant doing speed and talking about Buddhism and having sex with whomever you wanted to. Being interesting also meant getting drunk and turning your car over in the snow, falling out of apartment windows, falling on subway tracks and cleaning your gun under the influence. A lot of people died.

Do my values seem convoluted to you? I didn't want to get married and have babies but I would shoot heroin and dance on window ledges? You do remind me of Edward, especially when you look at me like that. He's never approved of my choices. He would be furious about me talking to you. When does he come into this? Soon. First I have to talk about my parents.

I know I said that my parents were long gone. Charlie and Renee Swan, the people who had sex and biologically produced me were gone, Charlie was dead and so was Renee for all intents and purposes, dead to me, at least. Some people have more than one set of parents; you know that. Look at stepparents, sperm donors, foster moms and father figures. You have all these and more in the world today, is it any wonder that someone who's been around as long as I have would need more than one set of parents?

You are eager to hear about Edward, aren't you? Vanity. I say you remind me of him and you want to see yourself reflected in him.

Well, there's a part of me that's eager to hear from Edward, too, although I know I won't like what he has to say.

**a/n: I don't own Twilight. Still. **

**EverlastingMuse and Liz3615 have been incredibly generous with their time, betaeing and pre-reading this for me, respectively, as well as talking me down off the ledge when I said I couldn't write anything dark. I'll update Sundays (including this Sunday). Reviewers get teasers and I post them on my blog (link on profile). Thanks for reading! JuJu**


	2. Ghosts pt 2

**a/n: Enormous thanks to my pre-reader Liz3615 for holding my hand through this and my beta EverlastingMuse for trying to fix my mistakes!**

…_who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in_

_Paradise Alley, death or purgatoried their_

_torsos night after night_

_with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al-_

_cohol and cock and endless balls…_

"_Howl"_

_Allen Ginsberg_

_1956_

Peter and I were drinking with Burroughs and some young man he had his eye on at the San Remo. Peter and I drank cheap Italian wine and smoked weed. We called it reefer then. Burroughs was in a functional nod like the maintenance junkie he was. The young man was taking Benzedrine and drinking whisky. A combination I always thought was both ridiculous and masochistic.

It was a weeknight, a quiet night in September. We discuss sex and what drugs make it better. I know, it's embarrassing. The conversation was usually more intellectually impressive, you know, God, the Devil, choice, fate, what-have-you. But with just Burroughs and a chicken there just wasn't much motivation.

There was the sound of scuffling outside and one of the hookers who hung around us those days ran in looking for help.

"It's Dewey, he's been in a fight and he's bleeding like a pig!" She was overexcited and unsteady on her feet but the place was quiet enough that we could hear her fine. I got up to go to the door.

Dewey was a nobody, an old bum, but he had done me a good turn when I was new in town and I felt obligated to help him out.

"Leave the scum to the cops to deal with." Peter didn't want to get involved too much with the low-lifes, he didn't know he was living with one.

"Fuck off, Peter. Are you worried Mama's gonna find out?" I knew exactly how to push his buttons. I shouldn't have been biting the hand that fed me but it made me angry some times, what a voyeur he was, you know, slumming it with the freaks in the Lower East Side while he called his mom on Sundays.

I went outside to see Dewey slumped on the sidewalk, slumped over and bleeding. I asked him what happened but he was too out of it. I yelled into the bar to Peter that I was going to take him over to Beth-Israel. He ignored me. The whore and I propped Dewey up between us and started to walk him over to the hospital. I had to offer her some money or some dope, whichever I could get my hands on, but it was worth it to clear my debt with Dewey. We made it about half a block and were just cutting through the park when a man approached us, coming out of the dark.

I was frightened at first, I knew from firsthand experience that bad things could happen to girls in the park at night. But when I looked at him closely I decided to take a chance.

To start with he was obviously rich. He had an expensive suit and overcoat on and what he paid for his shoes would have paid Peter's rent for six months. I'd never owned those kinds of things but some of these guys came around in those days, looking to experience the underbelly of the Village. He was pale and I could see blond hair underneath his hat.

Being rich didn't mean he wasn't a pervert or killer but he just didn't have the look. Besides, he was carrying, of all things, a doctor's bag.

"Your friend looks like he needs some help," he said. "I'm a doctor. Can I take a look at him?" I agreed readily and he set his bag down and began examining Dewey, who we had set down on the path.

He said his name was Carlisle and he was on his way home after dinner with a friend. He patched Dewey up and helped us get him to the Emergency Room. He said that Dewey might not have made it if we hadn't seen him. He was polite and gentle. He didn't look askance at me or the hooker, nor did he ask how Dewey had gotten hurt. He insisted on giving the old whore some cab fare, which she doubtless spent on pills.

He asked me to have a meal with him at one of those all night diners. I was pretty sure I knew what was coming next. An offer of some money for some attention, a request for a connection for what the Village had to offer: sex, drugs, girls, boys, whatever his ache was for.

I complied, because I could stand to benefit from this deal. Besides, he was kind and that was a quality that was rare for me to encounter in those days.

I ordered a hamburger and some pie. He got some coffee but didn't drink a drop, just wrapped his hands around it, first one, then the other, as if cold or nervous. I figured it was the latter, it's not easy for nice guys to step into their sin, even if every ounce of them desired it.

So I tried to make it easy on him. I told him what I could do for him; I spread the menu of the East Side out in front of him, even using the most tantalizing adjectives.

I told him I what I could do for him with my body, my mouth. I told him that I would hurt him if that's what he wanted. Or he could humiliate me, tie me up, that was a popular one. Teacher and student, tempted priest, whatever story he had been dreaming about. I told him that if I wasn't his taste I could find what he wanted; Asian girls, Greek boys, fat women, prep school students. If it wasn't sex did he want to take a vacation from his mind? The Village had a pharmacy of prescription drugs and a forest of illicit ones for him to chose from.

Carlisle looked at me with such ageless, deep sadness that I had to look again at his young face to reassure myself that he wasn't really 100 years old. He sighed and said that he didn't want any of that. He asked me how I happened to be living this way when I was so young and he told me he wanted to help me.

I was humiliated and furious. How dare he treat me as though I was someone to be pitied, as if I were powerless! I got up from the table and told him to leave me the hell alone and I left.

I had met my second and most loving father and I had cursed him. But I would see him again in just a few weeks when he brought me back from the dead the first time.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

_Nick Geracimos set his messenger bag down on the floor of the small electronics store and set the digital recorder and a package of batteries on the counter to pay. He was sure that his notes and memory would help him to reconstruct the story so far but he wanted a better way to record her story for the next time they met._

_She was insane, that much was true. Talking about the East Village in 1954 when there was no way she was older than 20 or 21, easily half his age. Crazy or some kind of eccentric performance artist. Either way, Nick had lived long enough in the city to have seen some strange things and he knew a great story when he heard it, whether or not it was true. Either she was crazy and he could write the story of an encounter with a brilliant, crazy woman or she was a highly talented storyteller and they could collaborate; his connections at magazines and her creativity. It was a win-win situation. _

_But he knew that wasn't why he agreed to follow her back to her hotel room and listen to her talk. It was those mesmerizing eyes, flawless face, exquisite body and even her smell. Everything about her drew him in, took away his power to say no. _

_And then she started to tell her crazy story and he was hooked. He weighed the possibilities in his head and tried to figure the odds on her sleeping with him. She certainly talked as if she was sexually promiscuous and even if she wasn't, maybe she would be so grateful to him for listening to her crazy story that she would have sex with him. He decided to bring a bottle of wine to their next appointment._

_Nick made his way to his apartment and pushing his door open he noticed a white envelope on the floor. There was no gap between the floor and the front door and no way for someone to get the envelope there without getting in the door, whether they broke in or had a key. But there it was, on the floor just 2 feet away from the door. He picked it up. The paper was heavy, textured, expensive. His name was written on the front, just his first name. The script was feminine, elegant and written with a heavy, dark ink._

_He opened it and read the letter that was written in the same old-fashioned, heavy hand._

_Dear Nick,_

_It is very dangerous for you to hear her story; it could cost you your life. If you don't show up for your next meeting she won't pursue you. Please believe me when I say you have no idea what you are getting involved with. Please consider it._

_Yours Truly,_

_A Concerned Stranger_

_Nick laughed. It was just the kind of theatrics he could see her participating in. She had to know how making what they were doing seem dangerous would do to a writer with any curiosity whatsoever. _

_Whether she was crazy or just some eccentric artist Nick knew that there was no way he wouldn't make their next meeting. This was too good to pass up._

**a/n: Thank you to my early adopters willing to give this a try! I'm only a little out of my depth! **

**Also, there's a compilation being put together for Fandom against Domestic Violence. There are 130 authors, including some of my favorites. Go here: http:/fandomagainstdomesticviolence (dot) blogspot (dot) com/ (remove my spaces) to check it out. I have never participated in one of these but the cause is particularly compelling for me and I hope they can get a ton of support! Thanks! JuJu**


	3. Ghosts pt 3

"_**angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly**_

_**connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-**_

_**ery of night,**_

_**who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat**_

_**up smoking in the supernatural darkness of**_

_**cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities**_

_**contemplating jazz,"**_

"_**Howl"**_

_**Allen Ginsberg**_

_**1956**_

It was so kind of you to bring refreshments, you'll have to drink the wine yourself, of course, but what do they say? It's the thought that counts?

Is it something that Edward would have done? I don't know. I never experienced what he was like when attempting to impress a woman. If I had to imagine what his attempts at courtship would be I would guess that he would declare himself earnestly and then wrap her in the cloak of his protectiveness and adoration. But not just any woman, _the woman_. Men like my brother Edward only fall in love once and then they do it absolutely. No, I don't know if he ever has. Perhaps you'll have the chance to ask him yourself?

But we're not talking about Edward yet. We're talking about Carlisle. I wanted nothing to do with Carlisle and his sympathy, his attempts to assuage whatever guilt he had by saving some poor girl from the streets. I had seen it before and I had no doubt I'd see it again. I refused to feel shame for what I chose to do with my life. And I wasn't a whore, per se, not that I would have been embarrassed to admit it if I were. I was Peter's mistress, I wasn't a girl he could have married or taken to faculty parties. I had slept with men for security or money but_ I _chose who I slept with. I was hardly picking up tricks in Time Square.

I didn't want to be looked at with pity. _ I _had chosen the life I lived. I had grown up in the midst of death, daughter to a chief of police in a poor town where a good time on a Saturday night could end at the local morgue. My maternal grandfather owned the local funeral parlor where I would go after school so my grandmother could babysit me. I was made to understand at an early age that life is brutish and short but rather than put my faith in the stained glass Jesus in the dimly-lit church of my grandparents I put my faith in sensation and my own mind.

My desire for sensation was what led me to shoot heroin. It was pretty much de rigueur in my crowd in those days. I prided myself on not being one of those pathetic junkies, on being an occasional, recreational user. But that didn't mean that I couldn't overdose. Which is what I did accidentally a couple weeks after I met Carlisle.

I remember fixing in my apartment with a male friend and the next thing I knew I woke up with an ache in my chest like I'd been stabbed. I was wearing clothes that weren't my own, a woman's nightgown, and sleeping in a strange bed. I jerked upright and then collapsed back, suddenly weak. I must have cried out without realizing it because a woman came into the room.

She was in her mid-twenties and looked like someone's mother. Someone's beautiful mother, with long caramel-colored hair and light brown eyes. She had a look on her face that reminded me of Carlisle in its fierce kindness and concern.

"Are you alright, Bella?" She came to the side of the bed and placed a hand on my forehead. Her hand was cool. It felt good on my hot forehead.

"Where am I?" She smiled and turned to leave.

"I'm going to get you something to eat and I'll explain everything. I'm Esme, by the way. I'll be right back." I was disoriented and frightened, not familiar feelings for me but I was too weak to do anything about where I was and something about Esme made me feel comforted. She reminded me of my grandmother in her gentleness.

She returned with some soup and some tea and helped me prop myself up to eat. Once I was a little more lucid I could see that I was not in a hospital. The room I was in was too nicely furnished and Esme wore regular clothes, not a nurse's uniform.

"This is my home, you're still in New York." I realized then that I couldn't hear the traffic well and figured I must be high up in an apartment building. Probably a nice one, judging from the furnishings and Esme's clothing.

"My husband brought you here. You overdosed and…nearly died." She looked at me kindly but remarkably without judgment. She placed a cool hand on my arm.

"Your husband?" I looked at her curiously. She was reminding me of someone else, something about her eyes.

"Carlisle? You met him in the park a few weeks ago?" I jerked away from her, spilling the tea in my hand.

"I don't want anything to do with you two. Take me home." I saw what was happening. This couple brought me here to take advantage of me or to make me a charity case. I wondered if I was well enough to be at home or if I had to go to the hospital.

"Bella, it's alright. We're not going to hurt you." Her voice was soothing and I wanted to trust her but I didn't know how.

"I don't want…I don't do anything against my will." She looked at me sadly and nodded her head.

"I don't want to take advantage of you. You're sick and need to be taken care of." She got up to walk out of the room. "I'll be right back." I lay there, knowing I was too weak to get out of here on my own, wondering what to do.

She came back in carrying a phone which she plugged into a wall. She set the phone on the nightstand and handed me the receiver.

"You can call the police or a friend to come get you."

She dialed "O" and I could hear the operator. She looked into my eyes and I realized that I could trust her. Maybe not her husband, maybe not anyone else, but I could trust her. I thanked the operator and hung the receiver back up. She smiled at me and stroked her cool hand across my hair. I was so tired I fell asleep again with her hand on my hair.

I woke again later to see the doctor himself. I quickly looked to see if the phone was still on the nightstand.

He laughed and said: "Nice to see you too, Bella." I pulled myself up a little, wincing at the pain in my chest. I put my hand to where it hurt and he pointed to where my hand was.

"That's where I had to administer the adrenaline shot." I looked at him, confusion must have been apparent. "Your heart stopped when you overdosed. I had to restart it. You're not a regular user?"

I shook my head. "I figured as much. You don't have much scarring and you're still pretty healthy. You have a very dangerous lifestyle." He should have sounded like he was lecturing me but somehow it didn't. He was just stating a fact.

"How did you find me?" My voice felt weak from not using it. I wanted to be ascerbic, harsh, but I didn't have the strength.

"I found out where you lived from the diner, I wanted to check on Mr. Dewey since he checked out of the hospital without a forwarding address. I just happened to show up just when your 'friend' was leaving you there to die." It was sinking in. I had died and he had saved me. I wanted Esme. I asked him for her. I must have looked pathetic because he dropped his cool demeanor and looked at me gently.

"She'll be back in a few minutes. Can I get you anything?" I shook my head and rolled away from him. He got the message after a moment and left.

When Esme returned she fed me some more. I wanted to cry but I couldn't let myself. I hadn't cried in front of another person since my grandmother died when I was 8. I fell asleep again and when I woke it was dark.

The door was open and I saw a man standing there. I thought it was Carlisle at first and then I realized that it wasn't. This man was a little taller and had darker hair. And then he disappeared. I don't mean he walked away, I mean, he vanished into thin air. I assumed I was dreaming and closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

_Her voice had trailed off and she smiled at him. He cocked his head slightly at her and realized that he's had more to drink than he had intended. He had refilled his glass again and again, listening to her story and taking the occasional note, not paying attention to how his mind was becoming fuzzier._

_She stood up and he followed her, a mistake in his present condition, because he almost lost his balance. She reached out to stabilize him, her hand on his elbow and he moved slightly closer. She smiled._

"_You are ready to call it a night, aren't you?" Her voice was smooth, low, and her eyes, those dark eyes, mesmerized him. He took another step towards her and bent his head down slightly to kiss her. He moved slowly, feeling her breath on his face but as he closed his eyes and had almost reached where her mouth should have been he was hit with another wave of dizziness._

_She laughed slightly, "Very flattering, Mr. Geracimos. A different day, who knows? I may have been tempted." He could hear her purring voice but the room was a blur. "But you are in need of a bed and some rest." He felt himself being lifted and moving through the air. Was it possible she was carrying him? She was too small, too delicate. He felt himself being lowered onto a bed and then a cool hand brushed the hair from his forehead and then oblivion._

_He awoke with his head aching and the bright light of mid-morning hurting his eyes even through his closed eyelids. He looked around to see an anonymous hotel room, clearly the bedroom of the suite she had met him in. His shoes and jacket had been taken off and he had been placed under the covers. There was a glass of water on the nightstand with some aspirin sitting next to it. He propped himself up to take the aspirin, wincing with each movement of his head. He slumped back onto the bed, groaning. _

_When Nick was able to open his eyes again he looks around and realized that she was nowhere to be seen. He got up from the bed, wincing as he stood from the pain in his head. He walks out to the common room of the suite. Nothing. She wasn't there. His things were still on the coffee table and there was a laptop computer sitting on a table near the door. He walked back into the bedroom. There was a small suitcase on the stand. She hadn't checked out._

_He sat down onto the bed to put his shoes on, working through the pain when he bent down. He was looking for his tie and coat when there was a knock on the door. _

"_Room service." A voice called loudly from the other side of the door. She must be planning to return soon if she had called for room service. He walked to the door and opened it to see a man who was definitely not room service._

_The pale, dark-haired man was at least 6'3", a few inches taller than Nick himself and much wider. He smiled at Nick, his golden eyes taking in his rumpled attire. He wore dark jeans and an expensive looking sweater covered by a leather jacket._

"_How you feeling, champ? You smell like your liver had a rough night." The man punched him lightly on the arm and walked past him into the room and sat down on the couch Nick had sat on the night before, putting his feet up on the coffee table. The man patted the couch next to him._

"_Come take a seat, champ." Nick looked at the man, processing the situation as quickly as he could, given the fuzziness of his thoughts. Nick shook his head slightly in confusion._

"_Oh, I'm being rude." The man got up and leaned over to extend his hand to Nick who took it tentatively. "I'm Emmett. You must be Nick." _

"_How did you…" Nick frowned at Emmett. He was sure that this situation was on the verge of making sense but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something, something obvious._

"_Don't sweat it, champ. I'm just curious why you chose to disregard my warning? You think I go to that kind of trouble, having my wife write you a letter of all things, breaking into your place, for fun?" Emmett's words sounded annoyed but he still had that big smile on his face and it seemed like a genuine smile._

"_That was you?" Emmett chuckled, shaking his head. "Nick, I'm sure I'm not catching you at your best. You seemed like a smart guy but this morning you're not really firing on all cylinders, huh? You wanna go get a cup of coffee or something?"_

"_No, I'm, uh…I'm gonna get going." Nick decided to forget about his coat and tie and grabbed his notebook and recorder off of the coffee table. As he pulled his hand back Emmett reached out and grabbed his forearm, firmly. Nick gasped, he hadn't even realized Emmett was that close._

"_Nick, I really wish you would reconsider what you're doing. There are things that are dangerous for you to know. She's dangerous for you to know." Emmett looked him in the eye, he was smiling but there was a threat there, Nick could see. He nodded slowly._

"_I'll think about what you said, Emmett. I really will." Emmett let go of his arm and nodded slowly, looking at him. _

_Nick got out of the hotel room as fast as he could._

**a/n: Enormous thank you's to EverlastingMuse, my excellent beta, and Liz3615, for pre-reading for me, in addition to being an awesome fanfic-cheerleader! Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. "Howl" belongs to Allen Ginsberg. All the confusing time-line shifts in this thing belong to me. Thanks! JuJu**


	4. Ghosts pt 4

"_**who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually hap-**_

_**pened and walked away unknown and forgotten**_

_**into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley-**_

_**ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,**_

_**who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of**_

_**the subway window, jumped in the filthy Pas-**_

_**saic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street,**_

_**danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed**_

_**1930's German jazz finished the whiskey and**_

_**threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans**_

_**in their ears and the blast of colossal steam-**_

_**whistles,"**_

"_**Howl"**_

_**Allen Ginsberg**_

_**1954**_

So Emmett frightened you, did he? I don't intend to laugh at your discomfort but if you only knew him as I do you'd understand my amusement. His wife is actually the one you should be afraid of. I'm not trying to tell you not to be afraid. But when you do get hurt, Emmett won't be the one doing it. And you _will_ get hurt if you stick around to see how this story ends, it's only fair to warn you. This is a story that can't be told without someone, maybe everyone getting hurt. But I _have_ to tell you, if you'll give me the chance.

You can go now, before I "seal the deal", as they say these days. I prefer "alea acta est"; the die is cast. It appeals to my intellectual pretensions. You can walk out now and I promise I won't follow you.

If you're not going to leave I should give you something to reward you. How about I tell you about the first time I met Edward?

It was only a few days after I awoke in the Cullen's apartment in New York. Esme had convinced me to stay, I don't know how: I was profoundly out of my depth. I met Emmett; you saw what he's like, a friendly, enormous man. Like a big child. His wife Rosalie is as cold as he is warm and she was even more beautiful. She barely spoke two words to me and she only said those because Esme and Carlisle insisted. Esme and Carlisle were their parents, of sorts. Esme and Carlisle, Rosalie and Emmett. Two gorgeous couples, madly in love, preternaturally quiet and graceful, all with those odd yellow eyes. I am a suspicious person by nature and I knew that there was something peculiar about my hosts.

But I ate meals and listened to records and read books in the elegant apartment of these two pairs of physically, energetically loving couples. The apartment was thick with affection to the point of discomfort for me. Imagine what it felt like for that fifth wheel, the other son?

I met Edward on the 7th of October, 1954. I was in the living room with Carlisle and Esme when he appeared in the doorway.

He was as tall as you and slender but he could easily pass for a teenager. I couldn't guess his age, his face was that timelessly beautiful, and like Carlisle, his eyes were so old. He was handsome, aloof and clearly furious that I was there. I would be too, I guess. I was a common prostitute that his loving, naive parents had taken in. For all they knew I was going to steal the silverware to buy dope. I supposed that I hated him back for his arrogance, his furious beauty and his judgment of me, as reasonable as I knew it was.

He greeted me coldly, like Rosalie had, staying in the doorway and holding himself stiffly. I resented his dislike of me more than Rosalie's, though. Maybe because he was beautiful; maybe because he was a man. I was used to manipulating men, using their baser desires. He left as fast as he had appeared. He did that again and again in the next week; coming a little closer each time like a timid animal tempted by a meal, creeping closer and closer each time but turning away before reaching it's destination.

How accurate I was in this impression, in retrospect.

Esme and I would sit in the living room, me reading something from Carlisle's library, her knitting. Carlisle or Rose would come in and talk with us, discuss poetry or music or the news. Emmett and Rose might play cards, teasing each other, Rose slipping me sidelong glances. Edward would edge his way into the room, sit down in a corner, and it was as if all the air were sucked out of the room. I would try to continue what I had been doing but it would be a puppet show, a pantomime. I couldn't comprehend the words I was reading; they were blurry, nonsensical.

I felt the need to control him, to rattle him, to wreck him. I hated his silent, chilly judgment of me, the fact that he seemed to not even want to breathe the air we shared. He would pick up books I had just put down and inspect them, as if afraid that I had torn it or written in the margins of a first edition. He made me feel shameful and powerlessness. I despised him. I was fascinated by him.

And then, one night, traitorously, the Cullens left me alone with him. I had no idea he was there, actually. The place was big and he could move through it so quietly that I would no sooner look up that he would be there. I took a bath and was getting ready to go to bed when the phone rang. I had taken the phone out of my room a few days earlier when I had decided that it wouldn't be necessary to call the police to rescue me and it's ringing had woken me up. I had to wrap a robe around myself and run into the living room to answer the phone. It was Esme, letting me know that they would be late. As I spoke to her I realized that he was standing in the doorway.

For the first time since I had met him I could decipher the look on his face. He looked at my exposed legs and shoulders. The one thing I could understand and control was physical desire. Edward wanted me. I could see it plainly on his face. It must have been devastating for him to desire someone he hated so much. I knew then how to defeat him, how to control him, how to destroy his perfect facade.

I changed into the most revealing thing I could find, a slip or nightgown of some sort and went to his room. I had never been inside it and the door was always closed. I let myself in. He was sitting on his bed reading a book, his long legs stretched out almost the entire length of the bed. His feet were bare. He froze as I entered his room. His face didn't show surprise, it revealed nothing, actually.

I slipped of my robe and dropped it on the floor. I watched his face carefully. He didn't seem to be breathing.

"You know what I am, Edward, don't you?" I moved towards him slowly and when I could reach out a hand to touch his bare foot I did. I slid my hand slowly up from his foot to trace lightly along the top of his calf as I stalked closer to him. "You know that I know how to please men." I thought I saw a flicker of an expression on his face but his eyes remained fixed on mine.

"I can make you feel things you can't imagine." I had reached his knee and I paused. "Do you want that?" I started moving again, slipping my hand up his thigh.

Suddenly he jerked away from me so fast, I had no idea how he could move that quickly. He was crouched at the head of the bed, eyes black, hissing at me: "Get out!"

I hesitated, thinking surely he was just scared. I knew that he was inexperienced. As I opened my mouth to speak again he said again, louder, his face blazing at me frighteningly: "Bella, get out now!"

Terrified, humiliated, defeated, I rushed out of the room. I threw on some clothes and fled the apartment. Within twenty minutes I had hitched a ride back to the Village and was looking for a fix, a drink, anything to kill the pain.

The streets of the Lower East Side weren't a deep enough abyss for me after that night. I despised myself and I despised him. That angel-faced virgin judge who rejected the only gift I had to give, who resisted the only power I had.

A virgin? Yes, as it turns out he was. But I didn't find that out until many years later. It shocked and horrified me. I had done Edward a bigger disservice than I thought. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I went to the Bowery. It was as low as I could think of to go. For the first time in my career as a whore I took the first trick I could find. I took the money and bought some dope, not bothering to haggle or even care about quality. I fixed, killed the memory of his horrified rejection and Esme's disappointed face, woke up and repeated the cycle. I don't know how long. A couple of tricks knocked me around and I laughed. I was robbed and I smiled. It couldn't have been more than a few weeks before I was dead again. This time for good.

I've been promising you ghosts, haven't I? The tricks I turned back then, my friends on the streets, my dealers and even the earnest young men I fucked in high school, they're mostly dead.

But me? Well I had the luck to attract the attention of the Cullen's and they saved me. Saved me by making me like them. A vampire.

**a/n: part 1: "ghosts" is done; next up: part 2: "phantoms". The incomparable EverlastingMuse betas this and Liz3615 prereads it and then holds my hand so that I have the courage to post it. As far as I know none of us owns Twilight or it's associated characters.**


	5. Phantoms pt 1

"…_**It does not knock **_

_**or ring the bell **_

_**or telephone **_

_**When the Messenger-Spirit **_

_**comes to your door **_

_**though locked**_

_**It'll enter like an electric midwife**_

_**and deliver the message **_

_**There is no tell**_

_**throughout the ages **_

_**that a Messenger-Spirit**_

_**ever stumbled into darkness"**_

"_**Destiny"**_

_**Gregory Corso**_

Nick took another sip of his German beer and let out a sigh. The group performing up on the stage of Tanner's was good for what they were but he had never been much of a jazz-fusion guy. But perhaps it was just his mood. He was furious, confused and embarrassed.

While he knew the whole time that her story was fantasy he never expected it to take such a ridiculous turn. She had such a good grasp on the history of the Lower East Side in the 1950's and a flair for the dramatic turn of phrase. Her story would make amazing historical fiction. But to veer into horror and start talking about vampires? What a waste.

Nick shook his head with disgust. He had wasted a week on her insanity and didn't even get any action out of it. She had dropped that vampire thing on him, told him she would be out of town for a week or so and left him shaking his head in confusion and chagrin.

He took another big sip of his beer and looked around. The place was pretty empty as it was early in the evening. He had just felt like coming here to drown his sorrows, get some closure on this whole ridiculous episode. He reflected that maybe he could still get a piece published out of this, even if it was just a humorous telling of an encounter with a crazy woman in the East Village.

The place was empty enough he could see the line of framed photographs along the walls leading up to the bar. Mostly old black and whites of the more popular days of the bar, he had only paid scant attention to them before. It reminded him of what she had said about the women in the photographs.

He had the sudden impulse to go look at the photographs. Getting up he walked to a random spot in the center of one of the walls and began casually perusing them. They seemed to be placed by time frame, the section he was looking at seemed to be the early sixties, he saw a photo of Ray Davies with two anonymous women. He smiled as he realized that she was right. The women were interchangeable; the men were the famous ones. He moved to the right one step, trying to see how many people he recognized in the photos scattered on the wall. He leaned in to look closer at a photo of Charlie Parker in the dim light. He heard a soft voice behind him.

"I think you might have better luck at that end." Nick turned around to see a man standing behind him, gesturing to the left, towards the older photos. He was slightly shorter than Nick so he was looking down into his eyes, which were a light yellow-brown, like a cat's eyes. He had pale skin and blonde hair. He spoke again, deferentially. "I assume you want to move chronologically. The photos are in a loose chronological order, starting in 1948."

"I was looking kind of idly, actually. Not for anything specific." Nick gave the man a smile. He returned a small smile and looked at Nick for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. He gave a small shake of his head and laughed, self-consciously.

"Forgive me, I assumed you'd be looking for something specific. My apologies for bothering you." He gave a slight nod to Nick and walked away. Nick turned around, feeling somewhat awkward after this interaction and looking to put his focus on something else. When the photo caught his eye.

It was a photo of someone Nick didn't recognize toasting Miles Davis at a New Year's party. There was a banner that said "1964" behind them. And at the edge of the photo, looking off into the distance, smoking a cigarette, was Isabella. Looking no younger than when he's seen her the day before.

It fell into place then. She was telling the truth. So the man who spoke to him…

"Edward?" He turned around and called to the man walking away. The man paused and then turned around slowly. He walked back to Nick, his eyes fixed on him again in that preoccupied way. "No," he said softly, when he was close enough for Nick to reach out and clasp his outstretched hand and shake it. 'No, I'm Carlisle."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nick shook his head in confusion as he and Carlisle walked to the parking garage down the street.

"It would be better for us to talk privately, would you feel comfortable if I drove you home?" Carlisle's diction was precise but not overly formal. The man exuded warmth, like Isabella had said. He was becoming convinced that the man he was walking with wasn't human but he was actually quite a bit less intimidating than she had been. She had that intimidating presence, inspiring just a touch of fear.

"Yes, that would be good. I have some…questions." Carlisle sighed and nodded.

"I suspected that you would. Perhaps I can suggest that you accompany me to my home in Connecticut? I would like you to meet my wife…"

"Esme?" Nick interjected. Carlisle nodded with a smile.

"Yes, and my children." Carlisle looked at him curiously.

"I met Emmett. That would leave Rosalie and Edward?" Nick smiled. Carlisle shook his head.

"She told you quite a bit." He looked serious and then suggested that Nick pack some things at his apartment and stay for a few days.

"I wouldn't want to impose." Nick found himself wondering if it was smart being a houseguest to what was apparently Dracula's well-mannered cousin.

"It would be a pleasure to have you stay with us. Additionally, I assure you that you will be far safer staying with us than you will be in New York City." Carlisle's expression hinted at something behind his cordial words but they both let the moment go.

It was early afternoon on a Sunday and the traffic was relatively light leaving town. As Nick reprocessed all that Isabella had told him in light of today's events things and words changed meaning and tenor.

"So if she was, say, nineteen in 1954, she's seventy-five?" Carlisle nodded. "How old are you?"

Carlisle smiled at him. "About three hundred and seventy years old. Give or take a few years." Nick looked at him blankly. Carlisle frowned slightly and then said, "I'm sorry, I could have prepared you better for that."

"No, it's ok. Is your whole family that old?" Carlisle shook his head.

"No, Edward is the next oldest and he's only one hundred and ten." Nick laughed.

"Oh, only 110. Great." Carlisle laughed with him. 'Are you really a doctor?"

"Yes. I am. I am currently working at a rural hospital in Cornwall but we are getting ready to relocate." He looks at me to see if Nick understood. "We cannot live in any one place for too long."

It took several hours to drive to the tiny Connecticut town of Cornwall. Nick admired farms and covered bridges and listened to Carlisle's tales of practicing medicine in different historical periods.

They arrived at a large, immaculate house down a long gravel path which had been recently cleared of snow. Nick could see a large Christmas tree in the living room and in the rear of the house. He could see what must have been a lush garden in the warmer months.

He raised an eyebrow at Carlisle. "This is…unexpected." Carlisle laughed. "I suppose you expected a castle or a graveyard. Many others of our kind embrace that part of our…reputation, but we prefer to be comfortable. Come." Carlisle grabbed his bag from the back of the car.

Nick entered the house behind his host. They were met in the hallway by a stunning, brown-haired woman with a gentle, maternal look and Carlisle's pale skin and amber eyes. She clasped his hand in between both of hers.

"You must be Nick. I'm Esme, Carlisle's wife. Welcome to our home." She smiled at him warmly and ushered him into a spacious, immaculate living room. It was elegant but also comfortable, with overstuffed couches and art and photographs of such varying styles that he was convinced that they were chosen for personal rather than aesthetic reasons.

Emmett was in the living room holding hands with the most beautiful woman Nick had ever seen. She was exquisite, blond and fair and she looked at him with utter disdain. The man got up and extended a huge, pale hand.

"Nick, I wish I could say it was nice to see you again. This is my wife, Rosalie." Emmett smiled as warmly as Esme had and Rose gave him a dismissive nod. Nick was beginning to anticipate the coldness of their hands and their preternatural beauty but he noticed the difference between the eyes of this family and Isabella. He looked at each of the vampires to verify what he had noticed.

"We have yellow eyes because we don't feed on people." A sharp, resonant voice came from the doorway. "I suppose hers were red." Nick turned to see the fifth member of the family, a tall, slender man with red-gold hair and a hostile, tense posture.

"Nick, this is Edward, my eldest." Nick extended his hand and Edward stepped closer but kept his arms at his sides. Within a few feet of Nick he paused and seemed to breathe deeply, closing his eyes. When he opened them they were black and he was wincing.

"You smell like her," he hissed, his nostrils flaring. Nick remembered Isabella's words for him, "furious and beautiful." The striking man flinched visibly and moved away from Nick to a standing position looking out the window at the snow. Nick found the composure to answer him.

"Black. Her eyes were black." Edward looked at him and then, with his eyes fixed on him, he tilted his head slightly as if listening for something.

"I'm surprised she let you live." Emmett spoke up, examining Nick. "If she was hungry." Carlisle looked at Edward and then seated himself on the couch facing Nick.

"I think we all have a lot of questions. Nick, can we get you anything before we talk?" Nick hesitated.

"I should wash up and I..do you have any coffee?" Esme smiled and nodded.

"Of course, let me show you around and I'll put a pot of coffee on." Esme ushered him out of the room as Carlisle and Edward exchanged pointed looks.

Nick used the spotless bathroom and went into the kitchen where Esme was putting fruit and cheese on a plate.

"Take it easy," he joked. "It's just me eating that, right?" Esme laughed.

"I don't get many opportunities to play hostess," she responded, handing him a cup of coffee and pointing out the cream and sugar. Nick leaned against the counter for a moment, watching her. It was remarkable to him to contemplate what she was, watching her in her farmhouse, preparing a snack for him that she wouldn't eat.

"Isabella spoke highly of you." he said after a moment. Esme looked at him with surprise and then her face took on a sad look. She seemed to consider her words before speaking.

"I care about her a great deal. It's not a popular point of view in this house, especially after what she did to you."

He frowned. "What did she do to me?" Esme shook her head.

"It's better to talk about this with the rest of the family. We're _all_ involved now." Esme picked up the plate she had been preparing and walked past him, stroking his sleeve affectionately. He followed her into the living room to try to solve the mystery.

**a/n: Thanks to my ridiculously cool beta, EverlastingMuse, and my brilliant pre-reader, Liz3615! This will start making more sense soon, I promise. At least you got to meet Edward! Thanks! JuJu**


	6. Phantoms pt 2

"**Will he later hallucinate**

**his gods? Waking**

**among mysteries with**

**an insane gleam**

**of recollection?**

**The recognition-**

**something so rare**

**in his soul,**

**met only in dreams**

**-nostalgias**

**of another life."**

**Wild Orphan**

**Allen Ginsberg**

**1952**

Nick followed Esme into the living room where Carlisle and Edward were talking quietly. They both looked at him as he took a seat. Edward was appraising him curiously, his posture and expression still hostile.

Carlisle took a seat facing him and Edward sat in the window seat. Emmett leaned forward while Rosalie flipped through a magazine at his side.

"Nick, I hope you are willing to answer some questions for us and then we will do the best we can to address yours?" Carlisle looked at him with an unspoken question. "I know it requires you to 'go first' but you know less about what's at stake here than we do." Nick nodded and looked again at the rigid form in the window. Edward was fixing him with a steady, piercing glare.

"That's fine, where would you like me to start?"

"Eddie just wants to know if you nailed her." Emmett drawled lazily. Edward swiveled his shoulders to fix his brother with the same glare he had been shooting Nick. Emmett leaned back in his chair and laughed.

"Emmett, I appreciate your attempt to lighten the atmosphere but please don't be disrespectful. Nick, forgive my sons, this is a stressful situation for all of us."

"You don't need to apologize for me. I've done nothing but welcome one of Isabella's playthings." Edward spat at Carlisle.

"Edward. Manners." Carlisle's voice was terse. "Nick, please start where you feel comfortable." Nick looked at Edward and then back at Carlisle.

"Isabella approached me at Tanner's a week ago. She said she had heard I was a journalist and she said that she had a story for me." He shot a glance at Edward who seemed to relax. "She met with me three times, always in a hotel room in the Village. She told me of her…upbringing and of meeting the five of you. I actually recorded the second and third sessions as well as taking notes if you are interested?"

"You brought them?" Edward asked him. Nick nodded and reached into the messenger bag he had left on the floor next to the couch. He pulled out a handful of tapes and a notebook. Edward looked at them like he wanted to snatch them from Nick but he merely watched as he placed them on the coffee table.

"Why don't you summarize for us and maybe we can listen to the tapes after you go to bed?" Carlisle suggested, looking at Edward pointedly. Edward nodded.

"That sounds fine," Nick agreed, settling back into the couch. He looked at Edward, trying to figure out his hostile reactions. Edward tilted his head at his examination, frowning slightly. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. A crack had appeared in his mask of animosity, he looked unsure for a moment, like the teenage boy Isabella had seen in him when they first had met.

"Isabella stopped at the point where she had left your apartment after…" Nick looked at Edward whose eyes widened slightly. He opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself again and looked to Carlisle with an unreadable expression. Carlisle met his son's glance and turned back to Nick.

"So she didn't tell you how she was changed?" Nick shook his head.

"No, that's where she left off. Where has she been the last fifty years?" He heard a choking sound from the window and Edward rose swiftly.

"I can't…I have to go out. My apologies, Nick. We will speak tomorrow?" Nick nodded to him in surprise as Edward returned his nod and left the room so fast that Nick shook his head in amazement. He hadn't been prepared for that part of the supernatural experience he was having. Emmett chuckled at his shock.

"It takes some getting used to, huh?" Carlisle rose and spoke to Emmett and Rosalie who had been merely watching the drama of the last few minutes.

"Emmett, Rosalie, I am wondering if you can fill Nick in on some of what he can expect to see while he stays with us?"

"Are you sure about that?" Rosalie spoke for the first time, without looking up. Carlisle looked at her.

"In for a penny, in for a pound, Rosalie. Nick will be with us for a while, no doubt."

"There's another option," Rosalie said, looking at him pointedly.

"No, Rosalie. That's not an option. Don't bring it up again." It was as stern as Nick had heard Carlisle's gentle voice and Rosalie's face registered it, looking down and closing her mouth.

"I'm going to speak with Edward. I will catch up with you in a bit, Nick. Esme and my children will see that you have what I need." Carlisle left the room with a slight crease in his perfect brow.

"Sorry about Edward. He and Bella have history, if you know what I mean." Emmett grinned at him. Rosalie elbowed him.

"Emmett, you have no proof that anything ever happened with them." She frowned at Emmett. Nick watched their interaction.

"Yeah, but you remember when he got back from Argentina, right? He was going to tear our heads off if we didn't tell him where she was. And that time Alice sent him to California in '75? I know he saw her then, too. He got that call from Alice."

"Who's Alice?" Nick asked. They looked at him as if they had forgotten he was there. They both looked a little embarrassed. Esme spoke.

"Alice is a friend of the family. We've known her and her husband Jasper since the fifties. She told us that Bella was coming." Nick lifted an eyebrow at Esme.

"Alice is a…psychic, of sorts," Emmett answered. "Some of us have abilities. Alice can see the future. She's the one who told us about you.

"Do you guys have 'abilities'?"

"Well, all vampires are really fast, strong, pretty, like my Rosie here." Emmett stroked his wife's cheek and she slapped his hand away. "Well, not quite as pretty. Plus we have good hearing, sense of smell, vision and stuff."

"Alice's husband can influence your emotions, manipulate them." Esme added. "And Edward…he can read minds."

"He can read my mind?" Nick was suddenly uncomfortable and tried to think of what could have offended or angered the volatile vampire. "I wish I'd known that. I probably offended him."

"Don't sweat it. Like I said, he's usually pretty uptight and Bella just sets him off. He's convinced that she's going to set the Volturi on us any day now. Of course, he's been convinced of that for like 50 years now."

"Volturi?" Emmett flinched and looked at Esme and Rosalie apologetically.

"I'm sorry, I've been saying too much. We should really let Carlisle fill you in on all the details tomorrow when Eddie's calmed down a bit."

Despite the excitement of the day Nick found himself yawning. He looked at his watch and realized that it was quite late.

"Nick, let me show you your room. You must be exhausted." Esme stood up and ushered him out of the room.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"The Volturi are the governing body of all of our kind, all vampires. They are a group of three brothers who live in an ancient city in Italy. They are protected and fortified by a guard made up of vampires with talents; trackers, some with offensive powers, the ability to harm others from a distance, some with special sensory powers." Carlisle spoke with him the next day, his family seated around him. "Aro, the leader of the three, has made it his business to pursue those with special abilities. They are an extremely cultured and ambitious group, they feed upon humans, as do most of our kind. The only law that matters is that we never expose ourselves to humans."

"So if the Volturi find out that Isabella revealed what she was to me they'll go after her?" Nick glanced around the room. Everyone was present but Edward. Carlisle had explained that he would be able to get caught up by reading their minds but that he had some work to do. Nick knew that someone had listened to the tapes and read his journal. They had been exactly where he had left them on the coffee table but placed in a more orderly way, edges squared up.

Carlisle paused, clearly trying to select the right words. "Isabella is a member of the guard, she is Aro's…favorite." He placed careful emphasis on "favorite."

"So, they won't do anything to her for revealing her secret to me?"

"I don't know; it seems unlikely. Like I said, Isabella is special to Aro, he confides in her. If they find out they will definitely come after you, though." Carlisle spoke carefully.

"And they may come after us, for harboring you," Rosalie added. No wonder she hated him, Nick thought. He had placed them all in danger.

"So, how did you know that Isabella had told me? When was the last time you spoke with her?"

"We knew about you because Alice told us."

"But Alice is selective in the timing and content of her information," Rosalie said, her beautiful face stiff with disapproval. "She didn't tell us that Isabella was going to reveal what we are until it was too late to intercede."

"I haven't spoken to Isabella in some time. Edward has probably seen her more recently." Carlisle looked like he wanted to say more but he paused. Then he examined Nick's face carefully. "Edward and I were talking about something last night that I'd like to ask you about." He considered his words. "We have both noticed a tendency to be, well, frank with you about things which we had not intended to."

"You understand that we are used to being extremely circumspect in what we say to humans. To live among humans we must be very private and quite good at deception. Edward and I both noticed that we found ourselves saying things to you that we had no intention of saying."

"I did it, too," Emmett interjected. "I started telling Nick here all kinds of stuff, without really wanting to." Rosalie snorted and Emmett looked at her apologetically.

"I suppose I am asking if you have noticed this yourself?" Carlisle looked at him curiously. Nick considered his question carefully.

"People have always…told me things. It's part of what makes me a good journalist. I have just assumed that I had a trustworthy air or something. I've never had anyone tell me that it felt like it was against their will." Nick looked at Carlisle, feeling almost apologetic. Carlisle was so polite that it made Nick feel rude, like he'd violated his trust.

Carlisle seemed to read his discomfort. "It's alright, Nick. We know that you don't intend to violate our privacy. I rather imagine it's something you have little control over."

"Imagine how strong it'll be when he's one of us," Rose elbowed Emmett as soon as the words slipped out of his mouth.

"Emmett!" Carlisle reprimanded his "son" and then looked at Nick apologetically.

"I'm sorry, Nick." Emmett spoke hastily. "I didn't mean to frighten you." He turned to Carlisle then. "But you know it may be necessary. Why wouldn't we be honest with him?" Emmett looked at Carlisle earnestly. Nick watched as Esme nodded and Rosalie looked at her husband with clear fury.

"I don't think I understand," he said, looking from Carlisle to Emmett.

Carlisle looked at him with sympathy in his eyes. "If the Volturi find out that you know about…our kind, the only choices they will present us with will be to change you or they will end you. If they give us the choice."

"Change me into a vampire?" Nick asked, although the question seemed obtuse even while he was asking it.

"We will try to prevent you from having to make that choice but it may be necessary," Carlisle was apologetic. "You may want to consider what you might chose if it comes to that."

"The choice between dying and being like you guys?" Nick laughed dryly. "I would think it would be an easy choice. I mean, who wants to die?"

"Don't assume that being like us is any better than dying." Edward had appeared in the door silently. Nick looked up, startled. "Any misery that you may have becomes eternal."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to assume that your life is easy." Nick looked at the man in the door. There was something different about him this time. He was less angry, his posture softer, more unsure. Edward shook his head.

"It's alright, none of this is your fault." It felt like an apology and the room remained silent. Edward looked up again at Nick. "I was wondering if we could take a walk? I wanted to show you something." Nick nodded and stood up.

They walked out of the house together silently and followed a path into the woods. After a few minutes Edward looked at Nick almost shyly.

"I want to apologize for my poor behavior last night. As I said, none of this is your fault. My discomfort with your ability to make me say more than I wanted made me forget my manners."

"Apology accepted," Nick said, curious about this change of tone.

"We appreciate you allowing us to listen to your notes and listen to the interview." The vampire said "us" but Nick picked up the subtext; he had a personal interest in hearing her words.

"How long has it been since you heard her voice?" As soon as the question came out Nick regretted it. Edward looked at him with a flash of anger in his eyes.

"Don't turn this into a love story in your head, Mr. Geracimos. Isabella doesn't love anyone." They were approaching a small cottage, perhaps some kind of guest house. Nick didn't dare ask.

"My ability makes living with others uncomfortable sometimes," Edward answered his question. "It's a little quieter out here for me." He opened the door and ushered Nick in. It was sparsely decorated, a desk and a chair, a battered couch, some bookshelves and an old piano. There was pile of journals on the desk; they had dark brown and black covers and were of varying sizes .

Edward gestured towards the pile. "I decided that since you would get the whole story out of me whether I liked it or not I would just give you access to my journals."

"Are you sure? I don't want to…"

"I can't talk about her without my current…feelings coloring my telling of events. It will be more accurate if you hear it this way." Edward had a deep frown on his face. "There are years of tedium in there. I've marked the portions that concern her so you don't have to wade through it all. Of course, if you are considering immortality, you might want to read them just to experience what it feels like. Years of the same, decades of the same, you can't imagine." Edward had turned away from him at this point, to look out the window. Then he walked to the desk and picked up one of the journals.

"Nineteen fifty-four. This is what started it." He pulled a faded piece of paper out of the journal. The old telegraph read "EDWARD TO ENCOUNTER SINGER STOP CARLISLE TO GO INSTEAD TO TOMPKINS SQUARE ELEVEN PM WEDNESDAY STOP MORE SOON STOP"

"Singer?" Nick asked.

"A singer, for our kind, is a human with blood that is so appealing, so irresistible, that it 'sings' to us. Isabella was my singer. Alice sent the telegram so that Carlisle would encounter her instead."

"Because Alice can see the future?" Edward nodded. "Then why not just stay away and leave her alone? Why send Carlisle?"

"A good question. I've asked myself that for nearly sixty years. At the time Alice was new to our family and we trusted her guidance absolutely. My father is, in many ways, very naïve for a man of his age. He has only the best intentions and believes everyone around him to be the same way. Unfortunately, that's not always the case."

Nick looked down at the journal Edward had handed him. There was a slip of paper in the middle, marking where he should start.

"Go ahead, I will leave you to it." Edward took a step to the door and then paused and turned around. Hesitating, he asked, "The first session, the one you didn't record, she said that we hated each other from the start?" Nick nodded and then he spoke. He felt as if he was reassuring an insecure suitor, not the enemy of the creature that started all this.

"But then she said she was fascinated by you; she said that your presence sucked the air out of the room." Something occurred to Nick then. "You sent her away because you would have killed her if you were intimate, didn't you? Not because you didn't want her."

The vampire became the seventeen year-old boy again, nodding his head shyly, not looking up. And then his posture stiffened again and the fury returned to his eyes.

"I told you not to turn this into a love story. There are many years between then and now and she's not pining away for me. I last heard her voice twenty years ago, when I stopped her and her _lover_ from killing an innocent man. She warned you and I will too. She's not the victim in this story; she's the killer. She's sentenced you to death, too. Don't harbor illusions about her."

With that he left the cabin. Nick swallowed down the tension at this outburst and opened the journal.

**a/n: Big squishy Valentine's Day loves to my beta, EverlastingMuse, and my pre-reader, Liz3615, for cleaning up this mess! **

**BTW, my first and most obscure fic, "Edward Masen"s 1918 Chicago Blues" has been nominated for a Vampie for best AU. Now, my temptation is to tell you to go vote for me but I am up against some awesome stories. I'm not even sure if I'm going to vote for myself! So all I'll say is check it out: ****http : / bit (dot) ly / h4HnsV**** and read some awesome stories! JuJu**


	7. Journal of Edward Masen pt 1

"_**Should I get married? Should I be Good? **_

_**Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustaus hood?"**_

_**Marriage**_

_**Gregory Corso**_

_Journal Of Edward Masen _

_October 1, 1954_

_Infuriatingly, my family's participation in Alice's hallucinations continue. Her "gift" has been shown to be fallible and yet they have endangered our secret and the life of that young girl by bringing her here to our apartment. And Alice is not even here to deal with the repercussions of her delusions. She promises to return from Europe within the month. The month! Anything can happen in that time. I could have killed the girl last night, the smell of her blood was so tantalizing. It was only by running to my room and sticking my head out the window a dozen times throughout the evening that she survived. I skulk about my own home, terrified and furious, like the monster I am. _

_While I admire Carlisle's compassion in saving her life, she easily could be treated in a hospital. Having her convalesce here is maddening. And for what? Because Alice says that she's important but doesn't know why yet? Ridiculous and dangerous. I am furious with Carlisle for allowing this, no, participating in this madness. _

_She is past the point where she needs bed-rest after her overdose and yet Esme has formed a relationship with her and has convinced her to stay on. Compounding my frustration, I was only able to get this information from Esme; I cannot hear her thoughts! Of all the insanity, we have befriended a drug-addicted, human prostitute whose blood calls to me but whose thoughts are hidden from me. Intolerable._

_I have dealt with the situation thus far by staying away from the apartment. But I am frustrated by my exile. Firstly, I am unable to be sure that my family is safe, secondly, I resent being driven from my own home by this girl, thirdly, most detestibly, because I am drawn by both the smell of her blood and the mystery of her silence._

_I run from the apartment and roam the city, only to find myself back at the front door, key in hand, without recalling having walked there. I find myself standing in her doorway at night, watching her sleep, listening to her heart and holding my breath. When I realized that she had been talked into staying longer I fled again, to this café where I listen to the music, the saxaphones and trumpets. "Bop", they call it. Jazz without structure. It's very dissonance catches me off guard, reinforces the discomfort I already feel. I am trying with every fiber of my being to stay away from her but I find myself in places that only remind me of her._

_Journal Of Edward Masen _

_October 7, 1954_

_I have been introduced to Isabella Swan. "Introduced to Isabella Swan." It seems so proper, so innocuous. The reality is that I have been drawn into the web of Isabella Swan. Her scent and its hold on me are ever-present but the other strands of her sticky web are formed by her stubborn, fascinating silence, the intriguing nature of her comments and the draw of her body and those mesmerizing eyes, that magnetic gaze._

_I am…attracted to her. Drawn to her the way a human man is drawn to a woman. It is a novel and terrifying experience for me. _

_She is not who I would have chosen for a wife when I was human. I couldn't have introduced her to my parents. We didn't move in the same circles. Well, in reality, she wasn't born when I was introduced to this life. Had I not been changed at 17 I would have been 34 the year she was born, 53 now. _

_Would she have loved me, an old man? Would we have had a chance at a life together if I had not been pulled from my mortal life?_

_Could I have courted her, taken her to dinner or the theatre? Would she have held my hand, accepted my caresses, been my love? _

_If I had paid her she would have used her exquisite body to pleasure me. For money or drugs Isabella Swan could have been mine for the night, for the hour. Could she have been my human companion, would she have loved me? I don't know._

_Will she ever take her place by my side? No, I am determined to stay away from her. Every day I decide to see her no more, to stay away. Each day I find myself creeping closer to her. _

_I am tortured by her. I am tormented by shift that took place in my very viscera when I met her, the pull I felt from her dark brown eyes, the way I can feel her in this place, even when she is at the other end of the apartment, the way I see her face when I close my eyes, the way my body responds in ways that I have no memory of experiencing in my present life or my human one._

_I know I will not drink her blood now. She is too powerful, too toxic, she will transform and destroy me; I cannot even fathom doing that now. I cannot decipher how she feels about me. She avoids my eyes when I walk into the room. I creep closer like the animal, the predator, that I am. Finally her eyes meet mine and I am trapped. She runs from me until she catches me. Daily, her net gets smaller and smaller and she traps me closer and closer. One of these days I will be close enough _

_to touch her and I fear for her life and my sanity._

**a/n: Thank you to my awesome pre-reader, Liz3615, for telling me this doesn't suck, and my beta, EverlastingMuse, for helping me to not suck! Thanks for reading! JuJu**


	8. Journal of Edward Masen pt 2

"_**Last night I drove a car **_

_**not knowing how to drive **_

_**not owning a car **_

_**I drove and knocked down **_

_**people I loved **_

_**...went 120 through one town. **_

_**I stopped at Hedgeville**_

_**and slept in the back seat**_

_**...excited about my new life."**_

_**Last Night I Drove a Car**_

_**Gregory Corso**_

_Journal of Edward Masen_

_October 25, 1954_

_I hope that I have run far enough away from New York, from Isabella. I am saddened to leave my family in the dark as to my whereabouts but I cannot risk them continuing to push us together. I have no idea what possessed Isabella to offer herself to me that night but I barely had the strength to resist what would have surely meant her death. If I had been intimate with her I've no doubt it would have been both sublime and tragic._

_I grasped the iron posts of my bed, crushing them, for an hour until I was sure that she was far enough away that I could resist following and consuming her. Then I ran from the apartment myself and set out on foot south, not stopping until I got to the hills of North Carolina and could follow the shelter of the woods. I stopped in at a bank in Raleigh to get money from one of our many accounts and I bought a car and a change of clothing. I travelled south relentlessly, driving through Mexico, Guatemala, continuing south through terrible roads and stinking towns._

_I didn't stop until I got to the town of La Plata, outside of Buenos Ares. Why here? I was tired and this was finally far enough that it would take me a significant effort to get back, enough effort that I couldn't do it as an impulse. Plus the Ford I bought used in Raleigh stopped working. The mechanics in town assure me that they can get it working as soon as the parts arrive. When that will be they don't know. Maybe I should drive the car into the sea to slow myself down._

_November 11, 1954_

_Journal of Edward Masen_

_I have attracted an unlikely human acquaintance here in La Plata. His name is Salvador Garcia-Lopez and he is a 35 year-old artist. He was educated in Madrid and was becoming a sought after painter in the art circles of Europe when he made the decision to return to his childhood home in here. He doesn't know that I know any of this, of course. I gathered my intelligence from his mind and from the gossip in the minds of the local townspeople. They are simultaneously proud and appalled by his decision to forgo fame and fortune in Europe for life as a teacher in a rural town._

_At least they know who he is. They are convinced that I am a former Nazi; Argentina is dirty with hidden war criminals. It's ironic that the truth about me is so much worse._

_They take my money. I buy food I don't need and contribute richly to the local economy, making a careful effort to spread the money around evenly. I even hired a gardener and a cleaning lady I don't need. I pay what they ask, even though I know they overcharge me because they hate me and because they can. _

_Senor Garcia-Lopez, Salvador, he begs me to call him is the only one who knows that I am not a Nazi. He knew Germans on the continent and knows that I am not one. He believes me that I am a rich American; he is convinced that I am fleeing a love affair gone wrong. He is right in so many ways but I gather he thinks that the object of my affection is dead rather than the other way around._

_Salvador is my landlord. I am living in the manor his grandfather built. I rented the home through his agent, however and didn't meet him until he sought me out. He approached me outside the town's only seller of pens and paper. I had paused on the porch to allow some village women pass by so they did not have to breathe the same air as me, an effort I was sure that they would appreciate. He spoke to me then._

"_It could be worse. If they liked you they would be throwing their daughters at you. Maybe literally." He laughed and I over-rode my natural instinct to avoid human interaction and smiled at him. I had been alone for a month._

"_Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. If anyone asks me you are the most hideous of war criminals."_

"_How do you know I'm not?" I knew the answer but was prolonging the interaction._

"_I am an artist. I notice things. You're an American and too willing to accept their hatred to be anything but a tortured young man. Your Spanish is very good, though. Where did you learn?"_

"_Mexico City," I lied. We introduced ourselves and I parted company with him before I got too comfortable with the novelty of speaking with another person. I couldn't afford and didn't deserve the friendship of _

_this man._

_I couldn't escape him, however. Within a few days he came by my house with a book he had ordered that he thought I might like. He was lonely, too. He had left behind friends in Europe and missed talking about books and music with them. I decided a limited amount of contact would be permissible and perhaps safe._

_Salvador has gotten into the habit of coming by my place once or twice a week, and inviting me to his. I refuse his invitations for dinner, saying that I have a "specialized" diet from a Brazilian clinic. He will have a glass of wine and we will sit on my porch or his, watching the moon, the stars, the local flora and fauna. From his porch we can see the town's plaza and Salvador tells me stories about the inhabitants of the town and about his childhood there. I know who was secretly in love with another's wife, what families had silent, unspoken feuds over events that occurred many decades ago. Sometimes Salvador paints._

_December 30th, 1954_

_I do my best to let the sleepy pace of the town and Salvador's lyrical stories consume my thoughts. But she is seldom far away. I wonder what Isabella is doing now. I wonder if she still stays with my family or whether she has returned to her life on the streets. Alice indicated that it was important that Carlisle save her life, take her in but she would not specify why. I cannot allow myself to contact them, although I know my family will be worried. I cannot allow any chance that I might go back there._

_It took two months for Salvador to ask me about my tragic romance. He is unusually intuitive for a human, a trait I attribute to being an artist._

"_Tell me about her, my friend." He interrupts at least an hour of comfortable silence between us. Salvador is staring into the forest with a pencil in his hand and a piece of drawing paper before him and I am writing in my journal._

"_Who?' I ask, pretending._

"_The woman, the reason you face north when you aren't aware of it." He looks at me with a gentle smile. I stare at him for a moment._

"_I can't. Please forgive me. I don't intend to be secretive." I let my voice fade out, hoping he will drop the subject with his usual courtesy._

"_I am an artist," he laughs. "I just want to know what she looks like."_

"_She…she looked like the moon. She had dark hair and dark eyes and skin like milk." I wince; it's painful to think of her, like a razor slipping through my dead heart. "She was beautiful." It occurs to me that I am talking about her in the past tense. I suspect I am afraid that if Salvador knew she was alive he would urge me to go back. He is a romantic and a fool. I am afraid that I would._

_I go on longer, detailing her slight form, the abyss of her dark brown eyes and the faint blush I saw on her cheeks that last night. Was it shame or anger? _

_I get up to end the conversation, not realizing that while I spoke, as if in a trance, I drew her perfect face in my journal. Thankfully, I have drawn her looking away in the distance. I couldn't bear to have her eyes looking at me._

_March 18, 1955_

_I have left Argentina. Even as I write I am on a plane scheduled to stop in Havana where I will catch another flight to whatever northern city I can to get back to New York. I am going back to her._

_I had no intention of doing so eight hours ago. I was sitting alone on my shaded porch looking out on the pampas and contemplating buying a piano for my rented home when I decided to go ask my friend Salvador for permission. It would, after all, have to remain here after I left so it was important to have my landlord's permission._

_I put on a long-sleeved shirt and a straw hat to hide my skin from the sun and hastily walked the fifty feet to Salvador's home. His maid let me in telling me to go straight through to the studio, that Salvador was working. She tried to hide her repulsion of me but I could see it in her head. I wondered if she would hate me more or less if she knew that I was not a Nazi but a vampire?_

_I walked through to Salvador's messy, light studio, observing with relief that the windows were placed as such that there was no direct sunlight in the room. Salvador was not there but I imagined he would return soon so I stood there looking at a few of the canvases that he had on easels. _

_Salvador clearly worked on a few paintings at a time, going from one to the other as his mood suited him. I had only been in here once before, when he brought me in here to see a painting he had completed of the view from my back porch when he was fourteen. I began to walk the circuit of easels in the room when I was startled to see a portrait of myself._

_Salvador's style was somewhat modernist without being abstract so I could clearly identify myself in the painting; I recognized my distinct hair color and it's perpetual disarray, my amber eyes and pale skin. What Salvador portrayed that surprised me was a haunted hungriness in my gaze. In his portrait I was looking in the distance but not as if thinking or gazing but searching desperately for something. I recognized it as the truth but was surprised to see that he could see it and paint it so accurately. _

_Uneasy, I finally tore myself away from the portrait to look at the next one. I had been startled to see myself on the previous canvas; I was devastated and shaken to see the next portrait was Isabella._

_I froze in front of her portrait, seized by fury and jealousy. How could he have painted her so accurately? How had he seen her? I realized I was being irrational and tried to calm my fury but seeing her face for the first time in months lit something in me I had never felt. I gripped the portrait by its edges, almost crushing it, catching myself as I saw the canvas distort from my force. I loosened my grip but continued to lock my eyes on it._

_That was how Salvador found me. He knew immediately what I had found but no doubt was startled by the look he saw on my face._

"_Edward, I hope I have not offended you. I was so captivated by your words about her that I could not help but…" His words trailed off as I turned to him, the painting still gripped in my hands. "How?" I asked. "How did you paint her so accurately?" He smiled proudly at me._

"_I looked at your sketch in your journal and listened to your words. I have her right? I wasn't sure about the eyes, exactly."_

_I looked back to the portrait. Her eyes were lighter that Isabella's but what was most telling about the fact that the artist had never met her was the expression. The Isabella of Salvador's portrait gazed out at me lovingly, warmly. She had never looked at me that way. She had looked at me with scorn, indifference and finally seductive intent and shock, but never with love._

"_You have done remarkably." I looked back at him with a thin smile. I wasn't upset with him, what he had done was not intended to offend me or violate my privacy. He was an artist, he felt compelled to bring my words to life. He intended to return my lost love to me._

_When I heard his thoughts I was seized by the overwhelming compulsion to go back, to find her. I reeled at the injustice, the perversity of the idea that this man thought my sweetheart dead when, in fact, I had abandoned Isabella alive in my parent's apartment where she might still be. I had to return. I fought against it with my rational brain but I knew then that I had to go back and try to find her._

_I don't know what Salvador saw on my face but he knew that something had changed when I saw the portrait. He stood there watching me. Finally, I was able to turn back to him._

"_Salvador, you have been a very good friend and an excellent landlord."_

"_Are you leaving? I apologize for my intrusion. It was unforgivable of me. Please do not leave because of me…"_

"_I am leaving because of you but it is because you have…reminded me of what I left behind." I gestured to the portrait of Isabella. I saw the shock and a hint of anger on Salvador's face as he realized what I was saying._

"_You mean she…you left her? All this time you let me think she was dead and you sat here mourning a woman who is still alive? What is wrong with you?" I couldn't help but laugh at his fury, which made him even angrier._

"_I'm sorry." I held out my hands to him and made my face somber. "I…am not good for her, I didn't want to hurt her. I can't explain more than that, I thought I needed to leave."_

"_You are going back, correct?" He looked less angry but confused nonetheless. I nodded. "Good, because I do not rent to Nazis or idiotic young men. You will go pack your things and I will arrange for a car to take you to the airport in Buenos Aires."_

"_Thank you." I looked him in the eye. "I know that your work fetches a large price. Please allow me to buy these two paintings. You must name the price."_

"_I will send them to you when I finish them. They will cost you an immediate trip back to the states to fix your idiocy." Salvador shook his head at me and walked back into the house. I looked at the painting of her one last time and left to pack my things._

**a/n: Thank you to EverlastingMuse for fixing my boo boos and Liz3615 for holding my hand and telling me everything is going to be ok. **


	9. Journal of Edward Masen pt 3

"_**At night in an orchard in Oregon.**_

_**All that I wanted then**_

_**Is forgotten now, but you.**_

_**Here in the night**_

_**In a garden of the old capital**_

_**I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao**_

_**I remember your cool body**_

_**Naked under a summer cotton dress."**_

_**Four Poems for Robin**_

_**Gary Snyder**_

Journal of Edward Masen

March 20, 1955

Havana was abysmally sunny and it took me more than a full day to find an appropriate flight to St. Petersburg, Florida. Once there, the weather was prohibitively bad and I was forced to take a train to New York.

I left Salvador with my address in New York and a promise to make things right with my lost love. I couldn't bear to tell him the sordid circumstances, I allowed him to pretend it was a lover's spat between two dramatic young people and not a potentially fatal encounter between a junkie and a vampire.

I am filled with dread at the thought of seeing her again.

No, that's a lie.

I am terrified by how thrilled I am at the thought of seeing her again. I am ashamed of the eagerness I have to see her. I am furious by how my thoughts turn prurient at the thought of Isabella. I have seen the thoughts of thousands of men and women and have been only repulsed by their fantasies and desires. I have had beautiful, seductive women offer themselves to me; some subtly, some blatantly. I have never felt so fundamentally disarmed, owned, transfixed by a woman.

Bizarrely, after months away from her, I am infuriated by the hours that it takes to get to her now. I pace the train's aisles. I tap my fingers on the window and armrest. I can hear the impression I am making on my fellow passengers. I look possessed, insane, dangerous. And yet I cannot find it in me to be more careful.

I cannot care anymore about anything but getting to her.

March 25, 1955

I am barely able to comprehend what has happened. Isabella has been changed. I have seen her and she, we shared intimacies. She has left me.

I arrived back in New York and made directly for the apartment of my family, the last place I had seen her, the memory of that night taunting me. What if she was dead? What if she despised me? Even if these things weren't true, what would I say to her after three months?

I knew as soon as I entered the apartment that she hadn't been there in months. Almost all traces of her scent were gone. I assumed the worst, that she had gone back to the streets, that something had happened to her. I was in the apartment only seconds before I found Emmett and Rosalie, sitting in the living room. Rosalie was reading a book; Emmett was watching something inane on the television.

"Edward, how was Argentina?" Emmett hardly looks up from the black and white show he's watching.

"How did you…" I start to ask and I realize that Alice must have told them. Clearly she told them when I would return because they are not surprised to see me.

"Where is she?" I ask them. Emmett finally turns to me, smirking.

"Who?" He knows I am asking about Bella. I can see it in his head.

"You know who I mean. Where's Bella?" My voice is getting louder. Emmett is driving me crazy. Rosalie is thinking about how nice it was while I was gone.

Emmett is trying hard to block her location while trying to come up with ways to tease me but I can see a cabin and some woods. I don't recognize it as anywhere I've been before so I have to assume it's a new acquisition.

"Where, Emmett, where is she?" Rosalie gets up with a huff.

"I'll get the address. Just try to control yourselves." She leaves the room and Emmett looks at me with a grin.

"I didn't know you were interested, Edward." Emmett has an image of Bella in his head. She's been changed. Bella is pale-skinned and red-eyed. One of us.

I hope that I wasn't reckless on my way to her. I have no recollection of whether I kept my skin out of the sun or whether I drove safely.

I followed Emmett's directions for two hours, getting to a remote, wooded area in upstate New York. We had used such places before, when Esme, Emmett and Rosalie had been changed. Newborn vampires need to be kept in a remote area away from people if they are to adapt to our diet. I made a turn onto a dirt driveway with a dilapidated sign marking it.

According to Emmett's directions the cabin was another two miles from the main road but I could hear the thoughts of Alice and Jasper coming closer to me as I drove.

I turned a corner and they appeared in front of me, blocking the car in the road. I pulled to a stop and got out.

Jasper's thoughts were curious as he prodded me for my emotional tenor. His eyes grew wide when he felt my anticipation.

Alice's face, on the other hand, gave off nothing. I tried to hear her thoughts but she was mulling over word choice in her head. She was trying to decide what to tell me. She would consider a phrase or sentence and then watch my response.

"_She's not for you, Edward."_

"_You shouldn't…"_

"_I know how you think you feel, but…"_

She tried several different approaches, watching her visions and my face at the same time.

I grew furious. Alice was attempting to put me off seeing Bella. How dare she?

"I can't know what you mean, Alice," I hissed at her. "You were the one who pushed her on us, on me. Isn't this all your doing?" Alice frowned slightly and then she spoke aloud for the first time.

"You don't understand what's happening here, Edward. It's…I don't want you to get…" Her words trailed off and an image filled her head. She tried to block it but I could see it long enough to identify it.

It was Bella and I; she wore just her undergarments, I had no shirt on. She was sprawled across me on a bed, her mouth on my chest, her hands stroking my bare arms, her hair splayed across me, my head tipped back in abandon, ecstacy. I almost shuddered with the strength of it, I had never been any situation so intimate in my life and it overrode any desire I had to discuss my presence here with Alice. Alice unintentionally showed me the one thing that would make her protests and her efforts to dissuade me useless.

I broke away from Alice and Jasper and ran towards the cabin. She called out to me but didn't follow. It took me only moments to reach the small dwelling.

I slowed down and approached it cautiously. Newborns could be very skittish and I had no desire to frighten Bella away. I recalled, too, that we had parted under less than auspicious circumstances. But now I could explain to her that I had desired her, that I was hypnotized by her, but that her blood had made me dangerous to her.

I let myself into the cabin and immediately saw her, standing across the small living room from me. She was barefoot and wearing a simple cotton dress. Her hair was down around her shoulders. She was paler and more stunning from the change but I found myself missing her deep brown eyes. Her eyes were orange-red now as the animal blood transformed the red of a newborn to the amber of those who followed our diet. She stood as still as only one of our kind could, looking at me warily, a book in her hand.

"Alice said you were coming," she spoke, after what seemed like an eternity.

She was so far away, so composed, so distant. I was unsettled and now that I was here with her I was forced to remember how I had left things between us. It was as if I had been having a conversation with an imaginary version of her and now that she was in front of me I had no way of letting her know what her alter ego and I had decided.

I was out of my depth. I had no idea how to ask her to love me. I had no idea how to get her to embrace my long frozen body that now only burned for hers the way my throat had burned for her blood.

"What do you want, Edward?" Her sibilant voice broke into my thoughts and now when I looked at her face I saw a hint of that teasing, mocking creature that had appeared to me the last time I saw her. That voice, that subtle fix of her mouth was what made me say the words I said next.

"You made me an offer." I said and something dark flashed across those persimmon eyes before she gave me a slow, sexy smile. She set her book down and started to glide towards me. I was frozen in place, still stunned that I spoke to her that way.

She paused in front of me and took the front of my shirt in her hand, dragging me towards her as she turned and pulled me towards what looked like a small bedroom.

"Come on," she said, her voice low and teasing. She pulled me into the room and I saw the bed from Alice's vision, covered with a faded quilt. She stopped in front of the bed and, facing me, began to unbutton my shirt.

"Bella," I said, startled, as my hands flew up to stop her. I had to tell her that she didn't have to do this, that I loved her, that she wasn't just a _thing_ to me. At the same time I didn't want to stop her, I needed her to touch me.

She shushed me, putting her hand to my lips and, pulling open another button, bent down and put her lips on my chest. I gasped and my hands swung back down to clench at my sides, for fear that their interference would make her stop what she was doing.

She unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off me, throwing it aside and returned her magnificent mouth to my chest and abdomen. Her hand strayed downward and brushed against the front of my pants and my hands flew up again, involuntarily, and grabbed her upper arms while I stifled the words that threatened to fly out of my mouth. I had never been touched like this, let alone by the woman for whom I had such desperate desires.

She pulled her mouth away from me and looked at me through narrowed, seductive eyes.

"Let me," she murmured, returning her mouth to my chest, scraping her nails against my arms, licking my abdomen. I shook with desire, unable to control my tremors, afraid to do anything, say anything for fear she would stop.

She pulled me by the arms, spinning me around so the back of my legs were up against the bed and then she gently shoved me until I was sitting down. Holding eye contact with me she reached down and grabbed the edge of her dress and pulled it over her head, revealing her pale, exquisite body clad only in a bra and underwear. I was stunned. I had never seen a woman in such a state of undress except in the minds of others.

She tossed her cotton dress aside and moved back towards where I sat on the bed and pushed me backwards. She crawled across me, straddling me. My hands came up hesitantly to touch her face, I wanted to tell her that I loved her, that I cherished her. I desperately wanted to touch her, to be with her intimately while I was appalled by what was happening between us.

This wasn't the way I was raised to treat women, let alone the woman I loved. In my era you didn't share a bed like this until you were married, until you had at least made a commitment to each other.

But Bella and her motivations were a mystery to me. Did she love me? I didn't dare ask for fear of scaring her off, for fear that she would stop touching me.

Bella tugged on my body until my entire body was on the bed and she returned her mouth to my clavicle, licking and biting her way up my neck. When I moved my face to meet her lips she pulled away, moving back down my chest as her hands stroked lower on my abdomen. My hands came up again to rest lightly on her arms, it was all the interference she would bear from me. I imagined that she felt better controlling out interaction, I know that I had frightened her badly before.

Her hand slipped down to rest on the waistband of my pants and I sucked in my breath sharply. I wanted to kiss her, hold her but I was afraid of how she'd respond. Her hand stroked over my hardness again and my hips jerked involuntarily against her hand. I could feel her lips smiling against my chest. She unzipped my pants and before I knew what was happening she had me in her hand and then she's taken me in her mouth.

"Bella," I gasped her name, my hands still on her shoulders. I desperately wanted this and didn't want this at the same time. She moved her wet mouth over me, it was agonizing and intensely exciting at the same time. I had no frame of reference for this, I had shied away from experiencing this in the minds of others so as not to violate their privacy. Within what felt like moments the feeling reached a crescendo. I curse my innocence and inexperience as the stimulation became too much and I exploded into her mouth in the most exquisite sensation I had ever felt. I was panting and embarrassed. Bella slipped her mouth from me and looked up at my face. She smiled slowly at me and pulled herself up on her knees, her hands on either side of my hips, my pants still almost completely on. I had no words. All I could do is stare.

"You need to hunt," she said. "You haven't fed in a while, have you?" I couldn't even understand what she was saying for several seconds, they were so incongruous to what had just happened. Then I realized that she was right. I hadn't fed in almost two weeks, an extraordinary amount of time. I'd been…distracted.

"I…you want me to hunt?" I couldn't understand where this was coming from. She nodded.

"You haven't hunted in some time. Even _I_ can tell." She smiled at me but there was a distance in her eyes. I wished I could read her mind.

She got up and pulled her dress back over her head, and, shooting a glance over her shoulder at me, walked back into the living room. This was all so unfamiliar to me, I'd been the frozen monk, the eunuch of my family for so long, watching from the outside. I had no idea what to say or how one behaved with a lover.

I stood up cautiously, watching her as I zipped my pants back up and found my shirt. I walked out to find her picking up her book, her back to me. I reached out and put my hands around her waist to pull her to me. She relaxed into me for a brief, heavenly second and then pulled away. She turned her head to me and smiled that cold smile again.

"Go. Hunt." She made shooing motions with her hands. I nodded and walked out of the cabin, with a look over my shoulder at her. She looked…sad or uncertain. I was afraid that she felt ashamed at what had happened between us and I wanted to reassure her that while it wasn't how I would have begun our romance that it was fine, that I cherished her, that we would find our way.

But I didn't dare not go on the errand she had insisted on and I ran into the forest to find something to feed on so I could get back to her arms.

It couldn't have taken me longer that an hour to find a few deer to kill, I was starving and wanted to make sure I didn't have to go back out right away.

But when I returned she was gone. I followed her scent halfway to the road where I was intercepted by Alice and Jasper.

"She's gone, Edward. I'm sorry." Alice held out a hand to detain me. Jasper was looking at me carefully, he was concerned that I would threaten his wife's safety.

"What do you mean, 'she's gone'?" Alice's head filled with a vision of Bella in what I knew to be the chamber of the Volturi. I had never been there but I had seen it in Carlisle's head many times.

"She isn't coming back," Alice spoke sadly. My mind reeled.

"I don't understand. She just…she and I…" I couldn't form a complete sentence, I couldn't even form a thought. I started for the road again, following her scent, but when I got there her trail was gone.

"She was picked up by a passing car. She will got to New York and catch a flight to Italy. You can try to go after her but she won't come back." Alice came up behind me. "I'm sorry. I tried to warn you. She's not for you." I turned on Alice with a growl and Jasper pulled her behind him and faced me, his face contorted in a frenzy to protect his wife.

"She's my mate, Alice." Alice shook her head.

"She isn't. If she was she couldn't have left you. Do you see what a mate does?" She gestured to Jasper. "She isn't yours, Edward"

I couldn't bear to speak with her any longer. I ran back to the cabin and threw myself on the bed that smelled like her, like us. I stayed there, with Alice and Jasper lurking outside cautiously, until Carlisle came a day later.

She didn't come back.

**a/n: Thank you to Liz3615 for pre-reading this. Also, don't tell anyone I wrote about sex; it'll ruin my reputation. Thanks for the reviews! JuJu**


	10. Journal of Edward Masen pt 4

"_**She with hair on fire. Mouth a flame with wrathful breath. This is the feminine speaking, this is the mouth and body and curse of the female. See her on the street, in the subway, at the endless-wait terminal. She waiting. Many storms of waiting. Just below the surface. Red eyes, gaping mouth, lolling tongue."**_

**Alphabet of Mother Language**

**Anne Waldman**

Journal of Edward Masen

April 17, 1960

We have been "invited" to visit the Volturi. Carlisle assures me, however, that this is not so much an invitation as a summons. We discussed it and decided that Emmett and I will accompany Carlisle, leaving Rose and Esme at home.

Carlisle has suggested that I remain at home with Esme and Rosalie, despite Aro's specific request for my presence, but I insist upon going. In fact, I stated my case so fervently that Carlisle is worried that he should make my excuses and try to forbid me to go. He is worried that I will become unhinged again like I did when Bella left. Carlisle has never forbidden me anything and he is reluctant to do so now. I assured him that I would be the very model of responsible, sober behavior and he reluctantly acquiesced.

Aro's letter mentioned nothing of her. I can only assume that she is still among them but I would never do Alice the honor of asking her. As far as I'm concerned Alice and her scarred beast of a mate cannot be trusted and I continue to insist that they stay away from the family, much her dismay.

A tiny voice inside of me says that I shouldn't risk seeing Bella. Our kind do not forget, neither do our memories fade and I can still feel the anguish I felt when she left and the delusional hope that she would return. I felt as though I had been hollowed out, burned from the inside.

But I cannot keep myself away. There is a part of me that wonders if she doesn't regret her decision. Or perhaps she finds life among the Volturi unbearable. She was very much a free spirit and the Volturi rival the court at Versailles in terms of protocol and structure.

Or perhaps I will find that our time together was a mere blip on her radar and she has moved on. Then I can convince myself that she never felt anything for me and it was not my lewd suggestion that drove her away.

Journal of Edward Masen

April 24, 1960

Isabella never felt anything for me. The infatuation was all on my side, she cares nothing for me.

I thought that this news would be a relief to me. I have feared for all these years that I drove her away with my proposition. I know now that none of it meant anything to her. I don't know why I don't feel relieved that this was not my doing.

We flew over to Paris from New York, staying one night in the city before moving on to Italy so that Carlisle and Emmett could buy gifts for their spouses.

After much discussion we decided that it was prudent not to mention Alice and Jasper to the Volturi if at all possible. Both had powerful gifts and their joining the Volturi would not only make Aro more powerful but Carlisle feared that they would not be given a choice.

We took the train to Volterra and were received right inside the gates of the ancient city by an elegantly dressed human woman. Carlisle had warned me that the Volturi kept human servants, often with the promise that they would be changed. Sometimes they kept their promise.

The woman introduced herself as Sophia and escorted us to an inconspicuous wooden doorway in the city. We were led down a sloping corridor and several flights of stairs all of them dark and undecorated. Finally, we passed through another tall wooden door and we were in a larger, well lit, poshly decorated hall. There were several vampires and a few more humans moving around the hallway, all of who tried to feign disinterest but their thoughts were marveling at our yellow eyes and simple dress. All of the denizens of this underground world were dressed in rich if outdated modes of dress.

A man in a long black robe approached us, his red eyes warming in recognition of Carlisle. He stretched his hand out to Carlisle and greeted him with a smile.

"Carlisle, it's so good to see you again," he said, clasping my father's hand in his.

"Gustave, it's a pleasure to see you as well," Carlisle's thoughts of this man were fairly warm. "These are my sons, Edward and Emmett." He gestured to us and the man's eyes went wide as he greeted us with a smile.

"Your sons?" The man smiled wryly. "Only you, Carlisle." He turned and gestured for us to follow him. "Come on, they're waiting for you."

Gustave leads us into a large chamber made of stone. There was a plinth on the opposite end with the three men I had seen in Carlisle's head many times and knew to be the leaders of the Volturi. Caius; young, blonde, angry. Marcus; reserved, weary, dark. And Aro; their leader, aristocratic, affected, Machiavellian. We stood in the center of the room flanked by the guard on either side. They wore robes of grey or black, dependent on their status here.

Aro rose as we walked in.

"Carlisle, it has been far too long, my friend." His voice was deceptively warm. I was having a hard time reading his thoughts, not an uncommon thing with older vampires; they tended to have better mental control and I assumed he knew of my ability. I could, however, hear the cacophony of thoughts around us. The other vampires in the room regarded us as freaks and marveled at the unnaturalness of our yellow eyes. A few wondered why we hadn't been forced to comply with the "appropriate" diet for vampires and when Aro would force us to disband as our coven had grown in size.

"Aro, Marcus, Caius. My sons, Edward and Emmett. My wife Esme and daughter Rosalie send their regrets as their presence was required at home." Carlisle spoke respectfully but the hisses from the observers in the gallery made no secret of their disdain for the terms "sons" and "daughters." Another reason for these creatures to hate us.

I tried to find Bella in the room but she wasn't there. Aro made a motion to the back of the room and spoke to two men standing there. "A chair for our esteemed brother." He gestured at Carlisle. It was an unexpected move. No one was allowed to sit in the presence of the three brothers. Additionally, Aro including Carlisle as a brother was unexpected. By adopting the familial language that we used, Aro was showing support for us in front of his court.

Carlisle sat down on the chair that was brought for him and dipped his head in thanks. Emmett and I still stood silently on either side of him.

"Carlisle, your family has grown since we last communicated." I could see in Aro's head that Carlisle had written to him after changing Esme and myself but that Emmett and Rosalie were newer additions.

"Rosalie and Emmett joined us during the Great Depression," Carlisle added. "But you had yet to meet Edward. My first." Carlisle's evident pride came out when he gestured to me. Aro looked at me with a combination of greed and amusement in his eyes.

"Edward, I hear you and I have something in common." I knew that Aro was aware of my gift; Carlisle would have told him. It would have been foolish to let him find out from someone else.

I nodded, not knowing if he wanted me to speak.

"Carlisle told me your gift works differently than mine. Can you explain?"

I chose my words carefully. "I don't need to make contact to read people's minds but my depth is much less than yours. I can only read what's on the surface whereas I understand that you can hear everything they've ever thought?" Aro nods. It pleases him to have me downplay my gift.

"I'm afraid we've robbed you of another of your flock, Carlisle. The lovely Isabella has become an indispensible part of our little family. I do hope her absence hasn't been too much of a hardship." Aro was looking at me as he said this but I could tell from his thoughts that he was fishing, he guessed that she would have had an impact on the only single male in the Cullen family but he knew nothing concrete. I did my best to give nothing away. Aro's interest in me was becoming obvious to many of the guard, I was picking up on mental murmurings. Some were jealous and threatened, others were pleased that Aro would do something to put Carlisle in his place.

"Speaking of Isabella, she should be joining us," Aro glanced around the room. For the first time since we entered the room he didn't appear to be in complete control of the conversation. It was slightly disconcerting. But before he could change the subject a door partially concealed by the chairs of the three brothers opened up and she came out.

For whatever reason, she was clearly not required to wear the robes. She wore a tailored grey tweed dress with a dark leather belt and heels. She was more beautiful than I remembered her and seeing her nearly made me stumble backwards. She was as I remembered except that her eyes were a vivid red. She wouldn't look at me.

"Ah, Isabella. There you are." Aro's disorientation seemed to pass and he stretched his hand out to her. She smiled at him and strolled over, her heels clicking on the stone floor. She took a seat on the arm of his chair. Like a pet cat.

"Isabella, look. Carlisle has come to see us." Aro gestured to Carlisle and she turned her face in our direction for the first time but her eyes swept across me without pausing. "He's brought his fascinating sons as well." Aro spoke again, his eyes fixed on us. He fixed his glare on me again and I could hear him mulling over how much he could learn from touching me, from getting a look at the thoughts of everyone who had ever been near me.

Bella's gaze flickered back to Aro. Suddenly, she sprung back up from her perch on the arm of Aro's throne and with a prowling, seductive walk approached Carlisle.

When she reached him, just a few feet away from me she did the last thing we would have expected and sat down in his lap. Emmett couldn't conceal an exhale of surprise and Carlisle – although I could hear the surprise and embarrassment in his thoughts – maintained his composure.

Isabella curled her hand around his tie and purred, "Carlisle, it's so good to see you again. Have you missed me terribly?" I felt as though I was boring holes in her face with my stare but she ignored me. I wanted to dash her from his lap, to grab her and run from this place, to burn her the way she was burning me.

Carlisle coughed nervously in the onslaught of her seduction and tried to sound calm as he said, "Bella, we have all missed you. We hope that you are well."

She narrowed her eyes at him and smiled again. Still gripping his tie in her hand she pulled his face closer so she was practically speaking into his mouth. "Of course I am well, Carlisle. I always land on my feet, don't I?" With that she released her grip on his tie and pushed herself off his lap and sauntered over to rejoin Aro.

I was inflamed and furious, shaking with the effort it took to restrain myself. As she walked away I picked up again on the thoughts around us; mostly amusement at her games but there was a single note of jealousy. I could see Bella's flirtation with Carlisle through the eyes of one of the spectators and he was jealous. I glanced around trying to trace it but failed, the voices in the chamber were too concentrated and fierce.

Isabella reseated herself on Aro's chair. He reached over and stroked her arm affectionately.

"Isabella, dear, if you miss the Cullen's perhaps we can persuade them to visit more often?" I could see the wheels starting to turn in Aro's head again, he would have loved for one of us to join the guard, especially me. He looked at me with false solicitude.

"Edward, living among the humans must be terrible for someone of your gifts. It must drive you to distraction." Aro rose from his chair -Isabella's eyes still on him – and began to approach us. Something flashed across her face that looked like fear and then the mask slipped back in place.

"Aro, I can't think of anything more boring than listening to a Cullen for the rest of my life. Why do you think I left?" She plucked at an imaginary bit of thread on her skirt.

"Really, Isabella? I think that Edward's gift would make him such an exemplary member of the guard and he could keep you company. Don't you think he's handsome?" I knew that Aro was guessing, he knew nothing of Isabella and I, and yet I watched her response carefully. And was devastated by it.

"Aro, I have…tasted that particular entrée and it was not to my liking." Her words seared into me, even Carlisle and Emmett turned to me in concern. Aro looked at her and seeing the sincerity in her face, shrugged his shoulders and walked back to his seat. He sat back down and took her hand in his and stroked it affectionately.

"Very well, Dear. I think only of keeping you amused." She smiled at him and then, for the first time, met my eyes.

Nothing. I could sense nothing in them. No sentimentality, no affection, no recognition. I meant nothing to her.

If I believed that God listened to the prayers of creatures like me I would wish to feel the same way. I would give anything to feel indifferent to her.

**a/n: Thanks to the amazing EverlastingMuse for betaing and kudos to the infinitely patient and supportive Liz3615 for pre-reading this and helping it to make a little bit more sense. **

**My apologies on the wait, this takes more work to wrangle out of my head than my other nonsense. I'm going to guess this is going to be a every two weeks update but never a whole month again, I promise! Thanks! JuJu**


	11. Phantoms pt 3

"_**The lamp in the corner unlit **_

_**In vain **_

_**Abraham Lincoln **_

_**In vain **_

_**The Aztec empire **_

_**In vain **_

_**The writing hand:**_

_**In vain…"**_

_**In Vain**_

_**Jack Kerouac**_

_"Aro, I have…tasted that particular entrée and it was not to my liking." Her words seared into me, even Carlisle and Emmett turned to me in concern. Aro looked at her and seeing the sincerity in her face, shrugged his shoulders and walked back to his seat. He sat back down and took her hand in his and stroked it affectionately._

"_Very well, Dear. I think only of keeping you amused." She smiled at him and then, for the first time, met my eyes._

_Nothing. I could sense nothing in them. No sentimentality, no affection, no recognition. I meant nothing to her._

_If I believed that God listened to the prayers of creatures like me I would wish to feel the same way. I would give anything to feel indifferent to her._

Nick closed the dark leather journal with a sigh. He rubbed the back of his neck where it had been craned over the rickety desk reading these bizarre, tragic journal entries.

"What a fucking tragedy," he said out loud to the empty cabin. He thought of the pale, serious adolescent creature who wrote these entries. "Poor bastard." He reflected on Isabella. She had told him that she was the "bad guy," that she was a monster but she never gave him any evidence of it. It was a bizarre story, yes, but there had been no evidence of her malfeasance in it.

But reading Edward's words, hearing of how she seemingly seduced and left him, reading about her cruel treatment of him, Nick began to see why she would describe herself that way.

He shook his head, embarrassed. Of course she described herself as a monster, she was a vampire. But wasn't he staying with a house full of monsters? Hadn't he been enjoying their hospitality?

The bizarreness of the situation was beginning to catch up with him. He was staying with a family of vampires. Compassionate vampires. He had been interviewing a vampire who might have chosen to kill him at any moment. He shook his head again in disbelief.

They thought he had an ability. He knew that people had always told him things, had always opened up to him. It was part of what made him a good journalist; that, and an extremely open mind. The Cullens thought it was a gift, like Edward's ability to read minds. They also said he was in danger, a fact that he had been trying to avoid thinking about. He had buried himself in these journals instead, ignoring the fact that there was now a powerful group of vampires who wanted him dead because she had exposed their secret to him.

But why? Why had she told him? The story didn't have the feel of something she felt compelled to tell him because of his alleged ability. It felt planned, premeditated. Her telling had been smooth, like something she had practiced, thought about for a long time. And why him?

"That's what I've been trying to figure out." Nick jumped as a voice came from the doorway of the tiny cabin. He turned to see Edward standing there. The man, no, the vampire held his hands up apologetically. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Esme wanted me to ask you to come back to the house for lunch."

"It's fine," Nick said, getting up from the desk where he had been examining this terribly angry, sad and lonely creature's internal life. He was embarrassed to be speaking to him now, it was like seeing another man cry. Edward dipped his head at Nick's thoughts.

"I apologize for the discomfort. I…thought you should know what you had been dragged into. You may be giving up your life for this game of hers. I just thought you should know what you were dying for." Edward paused for a moment. Nick could tell there was more. "I guess there's a part of me that wanted someone to know."

At this Edward, looking embarrassed turned and gestured for him to follow. They walked back to the main house quietly and were greeted by Carlisle and Esme in the kitchen.

"It's beautiful out here," Nick said, eager to lighten the mood

"We don't tend notice the weather. It's getting colder. Are you warm enough in the cabin? Edward could build a fire," Esme offered. Nick could see Carlisle looking at Edward with concern.

"I like the cold. I was born in Detroit but we moved to Florida when I was young. It's nice to be back up North."

"Why Florida?" Esme asked.

"I don't know, actually. My grandma was the one who was pushing us to move. She was…superstitious, I guess? She said Greeks needed to live someplace sunny. She was almost fanatical on the subject. She hated that Grandpa moved them to Detroit when they first came here. I remember applying for colleges up here and her being inconsolable. My parents convinced me to stay in Florida to keep her happy." Nick smiled, thinking fondly of his grandma's eccentricity.

"What is it, Carlisle?" Edward was looking at his father. Nick's eyes followed his gaze. Carlisle had frozen, looking at Nick as if he had just realized he was there.

"What?" Nick asked, a little innerved by his stare. Carlisle gave him a slight nod, still staring at him, his mind clearly someplace else.

"I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. I don't think she picked you randomly, Nick. I…need to get something out of my office. I'll be right back." Carlisle got up and moved at slightly faster than human speed from the kitchen while Nick looked back at Edward. ""Did you see what he thought of?" Edward shook his head slightly and frowned.

"It was too fragmented. Please, eat your lunch. Esme is dying to hear if she makes good soup." Edward exited the same door as Carlisle and Nick looked to Esme with a smile before starting to eat.

He had eaten no more than half of his sandwich and a few bites of soup (it was a little salty) before Carlisle came back into the kitchen with an old book. Edward followed him, looking preoccupied.

"It's because you changed the spelling," Carlisle said to Nick. Nick looked at him blankly. Carlisle laughed.

"Your last name. You spell it with a "c" instead of an "s". I think that's why I missed it." Edward coughed lightly. Carlisle looked at his son and nodded, laughing.

"Of course, I am getting ahead of myself. It's not often I talk to someone about this and they don't have context." Carlisle sat down and Edward followed suit.

"I didn't mention that I lived among the Volturi for several decades. It was several centuries ago. They were the first of my kind I had encountered who lived in a way that wasn't purely feral and I was drawn to how civilized they were. I was lonely and wanted to be a part of a community. That was the only society available to me at the time." Carlisle glanced around the kitchen at his wife and son, clearly grateful.

"I thought that I could convince even a few of them to adopt my lifestyle but in the end we were incompatible and I left. In the time I was there, however, I was constantly asking for information about our kind and listening to their stories. The brothers claimed to have been around for at least two thousand years and they had seen many things. Their ranks had changed somewhat as well. We are immortal but when members of the court displeased the brothers they are destroyed. A very few have been allowed to leave. I was among them. Another was a good family friend of ours named Eleazar. He has since adopted our diet and has a family much like this."

"There was another that Aro had never spoke of but his brother Marcus had told me about. They called him either "the Greek" or "Gerasimos." Do you know the meaning of your last name?"

"'The old one.'' Nick stared at Carlisle. Carlisle nodded. "I don't think it's a coincidence. I think that you are connected to him somehow. I remember some of the members of the guard saying that he was a sort of…keeper of their stories. That he functioned as a sort of archive for them. Is it possible that this gift of yours, this ability you have to inspire people to tell you things, that it's hereditary? That perhaps he was a distant ancestor?"

Nick looked at him in wonder. This story was becoming more and more bizarre.

"That was hundreds of years ago, Carlisle," Edward interjected. "How could we trace him back? How could we possibly find him?" Carlisle looked thoughtful.

"I don't know why he left the Volturi. I got the feeling from Aro that it wasn't amicable but others spoke of him warmly. Perhaps I can ask Eleazar. In the meantime, if we can find out where in Greece your family came from."

"I don't want to involve my family in this." Suddenly this all became very real for Nick when he thought about vampires hurting his family. Not these vampires, really. Just the kind that Isabella and the Volturi represented. He reflected on how odd it was that he wasn't scared for himself.

"I was thinking more along the lines of having Emmett and Rosalie poke around immigration records and such. Don't worry, Nick. We will do everything we can to keep your family out of this." Carlisle placed a comforting hand on his arm.

Nick nodded as Carlisle got up. Edward looked down at the remains of Nick's lunch and then at his face. He gave him a nod. "You ready to get back?" He looked embarrassed after the words left his mouth. Nick chuckled. "You mean, to your cheery journal entries?" Edward's face froze for a second and then he gave him a wry smile. Nick could see the teenage boy buried beneath the years of this life.

Edward shrugged. 'I guess it's not very pleasant reading." Nick placed a hand on his shoulder and the boy flinched. "Sorry."

Edward turned to him and shook his head. 'No, it's ok. I'm just not used to people touching me. I should apologize for the intimate nature of my journals. I feel like you deserve to know what she's like and I…want to tell you my side of the story."

"Your journals are fascinating. Sad but fascinating. Thank you for sharing them." Edward nodded and they walked back out to the cabin together again in silence.

_Journal of Edward Masen_

_October 20, 1968_

_I am in San Francisco during what the humans are calling "The Summer of Love." I would beg to differ but that may be because of the nature of my mission. I am here to see Isabella at Alice's prompting._

_I was torn when I received the letter from Alice stating that Isabella would be in San Francisco on Volturi business. I wanted to tell her that I didn't care but there was no return address, no phone number, no place to rebut her offer._

_I tore the letter to shreds but the date and location are burned into my head. I don't care to see her. I don't need to see her._

_Then I told myself that I needed to come here to ensure the safety of my family. I reminded myself that she is our enemy; she has betrayed my family and who knows what she has told her new masters about us?_

_I tell myself that I am protecting my family. _

_I consider sending Emmett or Carlisle. But my gift puts me in a unique position to assess the danger. I convince myself that I am protecting my family._

_The city has been overtaken by young people. They congregate in the parks and street corners of the city. They sleep twenty to a house in the shabby Victorians of the Haight-Ashbury and then move on to a new house the next night. _

_They sing and dance, take hallucinogenic drugs, talk about art and music and religion. They cast off the expectations of their families and try to achieve what they think of as freedom. They try to be as children; naïve, trusting and happy._

_But there are others among them who are not so innocent. There are those who would take from these children. There are those here who wear the clothes and talk the talk but their thoughts are exploitative. They would take advantage of the youth and beauty spread out on the streets here. I hear them moving among the dancing, moving breathing throngs, their dark thoughts standing out like blood on a white bandage._

_Blood. There are some of my kind here as well. They take advantage of the unusually transient nature of the city, the way they did during the Great Depression and again during the war. I would wager that Isabella is here to deal with one of them._

_San Francisco is a good city to be a vampire in because it is overcast a great deal of the time. Nevertheless, I wait until the evening falls before I make my way to the address Alice had given me. _

_It is two weeks until Christmas and Union Square is lit up with lights and trees. There are conservative couples drinking in the bar at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel when I go downstairs but there are "flower children" begging in the cold outside the hotel. _

_They ignore me, my hair is too short and my clothes too conservative. I didn't put enough thought into this excursion, I am going to a concert and I will stick out like a sore thumb. I duck into Macy's and locate a pair of artfully scruffy jeans in the young men's department. I offer a young man on Market Street twenty dollars for his wretched smelling t-shirt and army jacket. He seems less than pleased with my tailored shirt and blazer but he needs the money and it's too cold for him to go shirtless. _

_I walk down Market Street to the Fillmore West. I am struck by the amount of young people and confusion around me as I approach the building. _

_I pay my cover and enter the club. Already I can hear the sound of a slow, distorted guitar accompanied by a man singing…nonsense. Psychedelic rock. I'm not sure that I can get used to it. But it doesn't matter. I'm here to see Bella._

_I hear his thoughts before I see him. "Edward Cullen, what a surprise to see you."_

_I look to the doorway to my right and see one of my kind. I have seen his face. He's a member of the guard, I saw him in passing in Italy. I pause and then walk over to him. Is he here with her or instead of her? I stretch out my hand, a habit from living among humans. He smirks at me before stretching out a hand. He is a few inches shorter than me and has a sharp, fox-like face and blond hair._

"_Demetri," he says to me. I can see from his thoughts that he is genuinely surprised to see me here. But he doesn't see me as a threat. He knows about my family's diet and feels that it makes us weaker, less likely to be aggressive or territorial. _

_We turn together to take in the scene in the concert hall. It's cloudy with smoke from cigarettes and marijuana. The concertgoers dance and sway and talk and sing. The minds around me are mostly disoriented. It's so strange for me to read the minds of people who are so altered._

_Even with my enhanced vision I am having a hard time finding Bella. The smells of the room likewise confuse my senses._

"_What are you doing here?" Demetri asks me. I consider him carefully. He really doesn't seem to have a clue about Bella and I. _

_Of course he doesn't, I remind myself. There is no Bella and I. He witnessed the scene in Aro's court and heard her reject me. He knows that there is nothing there. Better than I do, as a matter of fact._

"_I came to see the concert. I'm a musician." He accepts this readily as his attention is attracted by something._

"_Isn't she spectacular?" He gestures to a gap in the crowd and I see her._

_I realize that I couldn't find her because she is dressed as a Victorian gentleman. I had seen young people adopting this dress when I was in London a few months ago. I had seen children wear high collared dresses and double-breasted waistcoats. Bella wears a dark velvet suit and a floppy collared shirt. Her long dark hair flows out from underneath a top hat. She's just standing there, watching the crowd and the musicians but as I look at her she turns and sees me._

_As always, when I look into her fathomless, dark eyes, I am trapped. We might have stared at each other for a few seconds and it might have been an hour. I knew it was a mistake coming here. I didn't want to walk away._

_Demitri's thoughts interrupted my trance. He was thinking that they needed to leave to take care of the job they came to do. He gestured to her and she broke our stare. She nodded to him and glancing back to me, took the hand of a young girl standing near her._

_I hadn't noticed the girl before. How could I, with Bella standing there? She was young; perhaps younger than Bella was when I met her. She was dressed in a long white dress with a leather vest over it. Her blonde hair hung down to her waist but it was untidy and perhaps dirty. _

_Bella pulled the girl's hand up to her mouth and kissed it. The girl gazed into her eyes, those eyes that had trapped me. I took a step closer and tried to tease out the girl's thoughts from the cacophony around us. I experienced a pang of concern when I realized that this was probably Bella's prey for the evening._

_I managed to slip into the girl's thoughts as Bella slipped an arm around her waist. Their eyes were still locked together. Bella was dazzling the girl. Vampires could mesmerize their prey with their stares; they went without a struggle that way. Part of me was screaming to run away, to get out of the girl's head. But the stronger urge I had was, perversely, to be that close to Bella, to be in her arms the way the girl was._

_Bella was the same height as the girl and she pulled her chin closer. I could see Bella coming closer through the girl's cloudy eyes. She pressed her lips to the girl's and held them there for an agonizing moment. The girl closed her eyes and her thoughts clouded further and I pulled back, frustrated, to see the two women, their lips pressed together. Then Bella pulled her lips away and gave this girl a look of smiling regret and waved her away. The girl pouted her disappointment, having no idea that she was walking away with her life._

_Bella turned and made her way to where we stood. _

_I was filled with disgust for my actions. Would I have watched her kill that young girl just to try to experience her kiss? Could I make it through a conversation with her without breaking down? _

_She stood in front of us. She paused before saying, "Edward," to me, her voice vehement. I still thrilled to hear it; to hear her saying my name in any tone._

"_Edward has come to see Jefferson Airplane," Demitri said, slipping his arm around her waist. I wanted to tear his arm off. Were they lovers? I tried to tell from his thoughts but he was preoccupied with someplace they needed to be._

"_Well, enjoy the show," she said to me, her eyes burning into me. "We have work to do."_

"_There are a couple of newborns in town being a bit reckless. There's enough for everyone here if people are careful but not if they lack restraint." Demitri laughed._

_Then, Demitri's thoughts turned to Bella kissing the girl. He was intrigued, aroused by it and he couldn't wait to be alone with her. I realized, to my horror, that from the tenor and detail of his thoughts, that they were intimate, that they were lovers._

_Demitri had no idea what he had given away until he saw my body stiffen. He looked at me curiously._

"_I'm sorry, Edward. I forget that you must be subject to all kinds of private thoughts." He smiled at me all the while thinking that surely I must be used to such things._

"_We have to go," Bella said and she turned away from us and walked towards the door. _

_I stood there frozen with shock as she walked away. Her lover gave me a wave and followed behind, somewhat perplexed by her abruptness._

_As I processed all I had seen, I considered going after her, but when I imagined the confrontation I convinced myself that the outcome would be no different than any of our other interactions._

_It didn't change how hard it was to let her walk away, though._

**a/n: The sublime EverlastingMuse betas this diligently and the indispensible Liz3615 pre-reads it. It's still not her fault if you're confused, though. I think I got to everyone's reviews this time; I apologize for the neglect! Thanks! JuJu**


	12. Journal of Edward Masen pt 5Phantoms 4

**_"I am signaling you through the flames._**

**_The North Pole is not where it used to be._**

**_Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest._**

**_Civilization self-destructs._**

**_Nemesis is knocking at the door."_**

**_Poetry as Insurgent Art_****_ [I am signaling you through the flames]_**

**_by Lawrence Ferlighetti  
_**

**_Journal Of Edward Masen pt. 5_**

_Journal of Edward Masen _  
_November 10, 2010_

_We have had to arrange ahead of time an appropriate vehicle to rent at the Athens airport: a Mercedes SUV with heavily tinted windows. Emmett joked that it is surely the vehicle of choice for both Russian mob members and internationally traveling vampires. Nick laughed at this, too. _

_I am amazed at how he takes all this, takes us, in stride. The only hesitation he has exhibited was at the thought of involving his family, other than that he seems perfectly content to let us drag him around the world, no matter what the dangers may be. _

_Selfishly, I have to admit how incredibly freeing it is to have someone read my journals, to hear my side of the story. I'm sure that's the feeling that people seek out when they tell all their dark secrets to a therapist or a priest. It's disturbing how it brings all of it back to me but at the same time it gives me a companion in my turmoil. It's somewhat comforting to speak to someone similarly confused and confounded by Bella's actions, albeit to a lesser degree. It should be embarrassing but it isn't. Perhaps that is a product of Nick's gift. Perhaps it is my weariness of this life, this rock in my dead chest that I have carried for so long._

_Emmett and Rosalie feel that they have located the part of Greece where Nick and his family originated. They have also uncovered a rumor of a Canadian doctoral student who was writing a dissertation on regional legends and folk-tales that may fill in some of the details for us. Emmett is working on getting a copy of the student's work, it was apparently never completed but there may be enough of a paper trail that it may be helpful._

_We stop for the day in the town of Korinthos and Emmett goes out to find someplace with an internet connection and a fax machine. It is overcast enough that we are able to venture out into the town a bit. Nick speaks a little Greek he learned from his grandmother and we are able to help with the rest as we buy local delicacies for him and Esme examines textiles and old books. We are all pretending that this is a vacation instead of what could be a dangerous errand for Nick and perhaps ourselves._

_Three hours later Emmett returns with a file folder stuffed with thermal paper and fresh photocopies. He distributed copies to all of us present and we eagerly read what he had found._

**_Sophia Zacharias B.A., unpublished Master's Thesis, University of Ontario, Anthropology. Submitted 12/18/1973._**

**_Immortality myths in the Laconic region of Southern Greece._**

**_The oral tradition of Southern Greece has been well documented. (Abbot and Crane, 1934) While many of these stories tell of documented historical events (Spire, 1960) many of the stories have elements of the supernatural and/or the intervention of the gods (Reed and Mycowski, 1957). This dissertation examines the oral tradition and later recorded tales of the region of Laconia and Sparta; specifically focusing on tales of immortal creatures who were said to have inhabited the area since the Trojan War (12th century B.C.E.) _**

**_The earliest tale of the creatures surface just after the Trojan War in a version of the tale of Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. In the tale, not recorded until approximately 1100 C.E., Telemachus, after the death of his father, was traveling and found himself on an island in the Aegean. He and his men provided hospitality by the inhabitants of the island, creatures who looked like men but who were unusually fast and strong. Telemachus discovered them in the act of eating (or perhaps drinking the blood of) one of his servants. He confronted them on their behavior and they felt great shame for they had not been good hosts, a important act in Greek society, and they apologized and promised to help him to find a bride in return. This version of the Telegony has Telemachus' unusual new friends arranging for his marriage to Epicasta, daughter of Nestor. It was said that Homer was their son and that he was made to promise to maintain the oral tradition of the area by his mother at the behest of his unusual godparents. This is consistent with Hadrian's being told by the Delphic Oracle that Homer was the son of Telemachus and Epicasta. (Tales of Homer, trans. Parke, 1967)_**

**_Not all of these tales contain such an esteemed pedigree. The villages of Laconia are a rich source of native tales of the supernatural, the kind of stories that live on mainly in the oral tradition; tales of ghosts, giants and immortal monsters that feed upon disobedient children. For the purposes of this paper we will concentrate on the latter. The superstitions of the wives and grandmothers of the smaller villages of this region show a remarkable overlap with this version of the tale of Telemachus in that they talk of a group of immortal blood-drinkers, not dissimilar to the tales of vampires of central Europe or the stregoni of Italy._**

_I looked up at Emmett. "She wrote a paper on this?" Emmett smiled._

_"Yeah, but according to university records, when she went to Europe to do field research for her doctorate she ended up dropping out by phone. The only thing they have on record is a hand-written note by a professor that she called to say that she met a guy in Greece and was getting married. I haven't tracked any members of her family down yet but I can't find any record of her in Canada or the United States after 1974." _

_"So, you think someone got to her?" Nick says it with such calmness. I am struck by the thought that that could be him if he didn't have us to protect him._

_"The Volturi definitely have a history of tracking down and eliminating people doing research about us who get anywhere near the truth." Carlisle looks speculative. _

_"But I guess we now have a general area to look in. We could head south tomorrow and just keep poking around." Emmett says. For all his light-heartedness Emmett is a good researcher and knows how to get information in ways that are hard to track, even for the Volturi._

_We head south tomorrow._

**Phantoms Pt 4:**

Nick awoke at dawn to the sound of traffic outside his room and the beeping of his phone. He rubbed his face, sleepily, still a little jet-lagged, and grabbed the phone off the nightstand. There was a text from Carlisle:

**When you are ready we will get on the road.**

He dragged himself out of bed and took a lukewarm shower. They were staying out of the fancier resorts in an attempt to stay as low profile as a large group of gorgeous pale people in a Mercedes could.

They were on the road within the hour, having found Nick some thick coffee and some breakfast from a street vendor.

They drove south to Sparti, planning how to narrow down their search to find some vampires that they weren't even sure existed and without any idea of what kind of welcome they would get if they did.

Edward and Nick made a remarkably good team; Nick asking questions while Edward listened to thoughts. They moved south to the Laconic province, stopping to ask questions of old priests and ancient grandmothers. Nick's questions would often make them nervous; they resisted telling the two tall, American students any of the old stories despite the inexplicable temptation. But when the thoughts floated to the top of their heads Edward could pick it up and they would adjust their trajectory. The thoughts Edward heard became more and more specific as they headed south and into the less inhabited villages and towns east of Sparti, even as the answers became more vague and the people more likely to be off-putting or unwilling to speak.

After three days they found themselves heading down a dirt road near an ancient monastery that an old priest had thought of in a panic when Nick asked him about folk tales about immortal blood drinkers. Emmett rolled down the window and nodded.

"Folks, we have vampires," he said with a subdued voice and Nick smiled at him nervously.

They pulled up to an ancient stone house with a slightly less-decrepit wooden deck stretching across the front. In front of the house was a circle of squarish stones nearly waist high to Nick and enclosing a circle of about a hundred feet with the exception of two openings on opposite sides, one near the road and one near the house.

They stepped into the broken stone circle and paused. There was movement from the house and onto the weathered deck stepped a dark-haired vampire wearing a worn sweater and battered leather sandals. He looked ancient, like a stone statue of an ancient god, powerful and yet somehow peaceful, benign. His eyes were amber, like the Cullens'. He looked at each of them and then stopped at Nick. A faint smile appeared on his face.

A second vampire joined him on the deck and they moved forward slowly, curiously. The second man was very similar to the first in appearance but he lacked the ancient stare. He too looked over each of them, stopping finally at Nick. A look of surprise overtook his face.

"You are the very image of my little brother, Basil," he said, his voice sounding as it was coming from someplace deep within him, as if he hadn't used that particular cadence in a long time.

"He is one of us," the first one said, confidently, calmly. "You are a Geracimos."

Nick nodded. He felt relieved, somehow. He stepped closer to the men. He could see the Cullens tensing on either side of him but he gave them a reassuring smile and continued towards the men. He stopped right in front of the first one and extended his hand. "I'm Nicholas Geracimos." The vampire gave him a gentle smile and opened his arms. "I am Cyril and this is Andreas." He folded Nick into a gentle embrace and then released him to Andreas. Andreas embraced him as Cyril approached the shocked Cullens. He stopped facing Carlisle who gave him a dignified nod of the head and introduced himself.

"Carlisle Cullen, I have wanted to make your acquaintance for so long." Carlisle cocked a brow at him and Cyril laughed. "I have heard stories about you for many years. You are the first of our kind to not live upon humans and to try to live among humans to the degree that you do. I am honored."

The rest of them made their introductions. Cyril paused in front of Edward and appraised him with a fixed, curious look. "You have an interesting story to tell, too. I can see it." Edward tilted his head slightly and started to speak but Cyril turned back to the house and gestured to them to follow.

"Please, we get so few guests. My manners are terrible. Come in and join us. We have a great deal to discuss." The vampires walked into the house, gesturing for Nick to walk with them and the Cullens followed.

The house was all large rooms and shabby furniture. An ancient velvet couch draped with a rug and several faded floor cushions graced the living room. In contrast to this a great many paintings and pieces of artisan pottery were displayed around the room and large bookshelves were filled with books of a wide range of ages. Cyril gestured around with a smile.

"Again, I apologize for the accommodations. Sophia is always telling us that we need better furniture for when people come to visit. She's so much more in touch with the modern world, in my time food and shelter and entertainment were all that was required to be a good host but things have changed."

"Sophia?" Emmett interjected. "Sophia Zacharius, the graduate student?" Andreas nodded this time.

"Yes, she joined us in the 70's. She travels right now but you will meet her soon." Andreas gestured to the couch. "Perhaps we should be seated for Nick's sake." He smiled and they took seats.

"I imagine you have some questions," Cyril smiled.

"The first question I have is why you're not more surprised to see us," Edward's voice sounded tense and Nick looked at him, concerned.

Cyril nodded and folding his hands in front of him, took a deep breath like a man preparing to tell a long story. It was a natural-looking movement on him.

"I want to start by thanking you for bringing Nick to us. It is difficult for us to travel safely and we are grateful to you for sparing us that." Cyril looked at Andreas with the manner of someone intimately familiar with their companion. Andreas gave him a barely perceptible nod and spoke. "We were informed of your arrival by an acquaintance of _yours_."

"Alice," Edward hissed. Cyril and Andreas nodded.

"Yes, Alice and her mate visited us several months back to inform us that you would be coming to visit. I must admit, however, that I was still surprised to see how _like _us you are." At this Andreas looked warmly at Nick again.

"She visited you to say that we were coming before I ever met Bella?" Nick spoke, confused.

"I don't know who this Bella is but Alice explained that we would be receiving quite a few visitors, starting with you."

"Nick, remember that Alice can see the future. She would have seen all of this." Carlisle spoke gently.

"Then why all the…" Nick's voice trailed off as he waved his hand in the air.

"Perhaps it will make more sense when we explain who we are," Cyril said to him gently. Nick felt so comforted by him, he didn't have any way of explaining it away but he felt connected to him. Cyril composed himself to speak again.

"I was named Cyril Zoupena by my parents. I was born three millennia ago very near here, around the time of the Trojan War. My father was the local storyteller and I was groomed to take his place. As were many young men in my village, I was sent with the army of the Myceans to Troy to fight but I never made it to the battle. My ship was wrecked and I was washed upon an island in the Aegean with a few of my shipmates. The island was inhabited by one of us, a vampire named Canace, the sister of a king of Lesbos who had been sacrificed to a monster in exchange for his succession to the throne. She devoured the blood of my shipmates but she changed me because I amused her with my stories."

"I stayed with her for fifty years but the population of the island was too small to support two of my kind and I wanted to return home. I returned to the village of my birth. When I revealed who I was the people of my village renamed me and my remaining family members, a few of the grandchildren of my siblings, 'Geracimos' - 'old one' and for many years they worshipped me as a god. I led the people of my village in the Peloponnesian War against Athens, I protected them from harm, and I kept their stories and guided them. Unfortunately, I couldn't protect them from the Romans or from the coming of Christianity, which convinced my people that I was not a man but a devil. It wasn't hard to do as I still fed upon humans then."

Cyril smiled wryly at Carlisle. "I have to admit that we have only fed upon animal for the last fifty years and that it was more out of necessity than out of moral compunction."

"I turned one of my family, my dear Thea, just before the Romans came in. I could see that she had my gift, the ability to draw the truth from people and to keep the stories. But things were very hard for us during the Crusades, we were driven from this place and Thea was killed by Byzantine priests. I fled to Italy, to the Volturi. Among them I was protected from the dark ages and its religious fervor."

"I lived among the Volturi for a millennia until I angered Aro and was forced to leave. It was safer here then but I was forced to turn another of my family for protection. His name was Mattheus. He lacked the gift and was not born to this life the way we were. He hated what he was but remained with me out of loyalty until I found Andreas two centuries ago. Then we destroyed him as he had requested."

"Is Sophia related to you, to us?" Nick asked. Cyril shook his head.

"Sophia's family lived near this area so she may be some relation but she was given a choice to become like us or to die once she got too close to us. We are lucky that she is a natural scholar and took to this life but she is not like you, she doesn't have the gift."

"When did your family leave Greece, Nick?" Andreas asked.

"My grandfather moved to America in the 1920's with my grandmother. Their names were Georgios and Vaia Geracimos." Andreas smiled and looked at Cyril.

"Now that you've heard about us, you understand why we are so happy to see you. You have the gift. You are meant to be one of us." Andreas smiled but he looked anxious.

"It is your choice, Nick," Cyril spoke, looking at Andreas with a frown. "I will never again change someone against their will. Mattheus was a mistake and it was heartbreaking to have to destroy him."

"But we need the protection of numbers!" Andreas hissed at Cyril. "He is clearly intended to join us, why else would he have the gift?"

"Who are Katherine and Sanjo?" Edward asked.

Andreas and Cyril looked at him and then at each other. "How do you know of Katherine and Sanjo?" Cyril asked carefully.

"I can read your mind." Edward answered tersely. "Who are they?"

"They were part of our coven until recently. You have to understand, this is a very tedious charge. We feel compelled to live in this area. As vampires come across our path they tell us their stories. We keep the stories. Our movements are limited." Andreas spoke carefully and then looked to Cyril.

"But there's more," Edward said. "If you are to ask Nick to join you he should know everything."

"I angered Aro. He has made…threatening gestures in my direction. It is safer for us in numbers. We are not safe as just two."

"So, Alice may have sent Nick in your direction knowing that your numbers had been reduced recently," Emmett stated. The two Greek vampires looked at him almost in unison. Emmett had been silent through all of this as had Rosalie, Esme and Carlisle.

"But why would Bella approach me? You said she was a member of the guard." Nick asked.

Andreas and Cyril looked at him in shock. "You have been approached by the guard? And you survived?"

Nick nodded. "She told me her story and then the Cullens came and got me."

Cyril looked to Carlisle. "We must also thank you for that, for saving him. We knew that Aro had become more aggressive in the last few years but we had no idea he had the capability or the knowledge to do any such thing." He looked at the assembled group thoughtfully. "We need to make accommodations for our guests, especially our human." He looked at Nick affectionately. "Perhaps my brother could take you hunting? The wildlife here isn't ideal but it will suffice for a time, I hope."

They stood and began to discuss plans when Nick saw Edward stiffen suddenly. He looked at him curiously and the others followed suit.

"What is it?" Cyril asked. Edward's gaze was distant for another moment before looking at him.

"You have another visitor already."

"Do you know who it is?" Carlisle asked his son. "How many?"

Edward nodded carefully. "Just one. I've met him before." He walked to the door and out onto the deck in imitation of the Greek's welcome for them just hours before. The occupants of the house followed him and in just a few minutes a wiry blond with sharp features and red eyes walked into the clearing. Edward greeted him tersely.

"Demitri."

**a/n: Epic author's note is epic. Sorry. Give it up for my persistent and talented beta, EverlastingMuse and my awesome pre-reader Liz3615. Without them I would sink to the bottom and stay there. Thank you for your patience with waiting for this; it's somewhat tedious to write as I have to look stuff up and do research, of all things. **

**Just a couple pedantic things: in the process of getting my B.A. in history at an uber-politically correct university I had the practice of using "B.C.E." (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) drilled into my head as opposed to B.C. and A.D., because they are markers that are not predicated upon Christianity even though the cut-off is the same year. Plenty of reputable historians probably still use the latter, I am not a professional academic, it's just habit.**

**Additionally, I really messed with Greek mythology here. It was purposeful, please don't send me a copy of Bulfinch's or anything. I'm just playing around.**

**Also, I Google-mapped the stuffing out of this one trying to figure out where stuff was so I hope you can take any mistakes in stride, please. My knowledge of Greece is actually quite miniscule. The city of Korinthos where they first stop is the modern name for the city of Corinth, Sparti is where Sparta used to be and Laconia is the region where laconic people come from (this is true! Wiki that shit!)**

**Aaanndd, finally, I couldn't send any teasers out once I finally had teasers to send out because FFnet has forsaken me and my review replies. So thank you for the reviews and I will hopefully get to respond one day. Xoxo JuJu**


	13. Phantoms pt 4Demitri's Story

Nick stayed where he was, somewhat behind the group of vampires who began to congregate around the door and right outside the old stone house. The visitor stopped in the center of the circle. Nick watched as Edward moved forward to him, stopping several feet away from him. They stood, not shaking hands, not speaking, just matching gazes.

The other man had the pallor and beauty of a vampire but his eyes were red. He was of average height and slight build, with blond hair and an almost feline face.

After a seemingly endless pause, the other man nodded and spoke Edward's name respectfully but cautiously.

Nick moved closer so he could hear them speak.

"What are you doing here?" Edward asked. The other vampire looked over his shoulder and gave a slight nod to the others.

"Seven of you and a human," the visitor spoke, ignoring Edward's question. "You'll need more than that to last more than a few moments against the guard."

"Do you come to threaten us?" Edward's voice was hostile. The man shook his head.

"No, I've come to stand with you. You can read my mind, you know why I'm here."

Edward stared at the man for a moment and then gave a slight, distracted shake of the head. "That's what he wants but who's to say that he knows what he's asking for." The blond man set his jaw.

"But your friends need the numbers," Edward stared at him for a moment longer and then turned back to the house. "He'll die anyway, if this is all you have." The man's words made Edward's shoulders drop slightly and then he nodded.

"Come on, then. Let me introduce you." He walked to the house and it's inhabitants. He introduced the man to them. When Demitri reached Nick he appraised him carefully and then gave him a slight smile. His face didn't seem to be accustomed to the action.

"Nick, you've made your decision?" Demitri asked him and then glanced at Edward.

Nick nodded. "It's my choice," he said, looking to Edward as well. "I don't mean to be disrespectful but it's what I was born for, right?" With that he glanced at Cyril and Andreas. They nodded solemnly. Nick spoke again, addressing the Cullens.

"So I don't need your permission but I don't want any contention." He looked around at their faces and slowly, eventually they all nodded acquiescence.

"You should do it as soon as possible," Demitri said. "You don't have more than a week."

"We will change him and then Nick will hear your story," Cyril spoke, in a voice that brooked no argument.

Demitri nodded.

The elder vampires began to make preparations for Nick's change while Nick went out to watch the sunset.

_Demitri's story:_

_I was born just before the turn of the last century in a small village near the Carpathian mountains. My village has been part of Austria-Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia. Now it is considered Ukraine. As you might guess we concerned ourselves as little as possible with these politics. Often our village would change hands and we wouldn't know for months. We were isolated enough that generally these changes in regime had little affect on our lives_

_My father was a farmer and as his only son I was expected to care for the farm. But my mother's brothers were the best hunters in the village and I preferred to escape the tedium of the fields for the excitement of the forest. The dense forests of my country felt safe to me and while I hunted I felt comfortable, complete and free in a way that I never did under the eyes of my father and in the village. I learned everything that my uncles could teach me quickly and soon surpassed them. I had a gift for tracking animals. I would discover that my gift extended itself to men soon after I turned nineteen._

_I was forced into fighting in the Great War on the side of the Germans and when my commanding officers learned of my abilities, they enlisted me to track defectors._

_Young men are supposed to be proud to be soldiers but I was not. I thought only of returning to the forests of my village and being with my mother and little sister. My hunting had brought food and income to my family and I worried what they would do since my father and uncles had also been enlisted by the desperate Germans. _

_Additionally, hunting the unhappy men and boys who had left the army was a thankless and dangerous job and one that had little reward. I encountered men who had defected to take care of their families and to return to their former lives. It was devastating and dangerous and I had little love for it._

_Then I received a letter from home and I became one of the very men whom I had hunted. My father was dead, my family farm in disarray and my mother feared that they would not survive the coming winter._

_I left my post immediately and returned to my village with a fair amount of confidence. There was no one to track me who was as skilled as I was and I had no doubt that I could remain hidden in my mother's home._

_I tracked game in the dense forests and what we couldn't eat my sister would sell. I've no doubt that people of the village knew I was home but they kept our secret. We were not the only family to hide their sons and fathers in order to live._

_We made it through that winter and the war in Europe ended. It looked for a while as if a group of Western Ukrainians would form their own republic but the area around my village was quickly taken over by Romania and then handed over to Czechoslovakia in that treaty that the old men of Europe came up with to bring Germany to it's knees._

_It still mattered little to us who called our land theirs as long as we could live our lives in peace. Which we did for another two years. Along with the other men of the village I was able to come out of hiding and support my family. _

_But as famine hit our neighbors to the east in 1921, again things became difficult for us. We were very near the Soviet border and the civil war and ensuing famine led many soldiers of both sides over our borders to steal or, "requisition" as they called it, our crops. The Czech government did little to intercede as we were Ukrainian and they were in the midst of a Czech nationalist revival._

_By the winter of 1921 we were starving again. There was little surplus grain and game was scarce, even for me. _

_I set out one evening desperate to find something for my family to eat. There was an estate belonging to a wealthy family about ten kilometers from our village. The family had departed for Prague some time before but they had left servants to guard their preserves. I didn't want to steal and I didn't want to get shot but I needed to find some way to feed my mother and little sister._

_I snuck onto the grounds and began to make my way to the main house. There were no wildlife that I could detect so I hoped that there would be livestock I could steal. I had gotten to within five-hundred meters from the house when a set of strong hands grabbed me and I found myself being spun through the air to face a second man, a boy really. The one holding me must have been enormous but I couldn't turn to see him, his grip was so strong. He held me facing a teenage boy with longish black hair and red eyes. Not human, I thought. Too pale, too silent in his movements. I hadn't even heard them approach._

_"What is this?" the boy said, examining me closely. He spoke Russian with a faint accent but I was not so worldly that I could place it. _

_"He snuck right past you, Alec," a laugh came from behind me, this one was a native speaker of Russian._

_"We should kill him just for that but I fear Aro would then be hungry and angry." The boy turned and started to walk to the house, gesturing to the giant holding me to come along._

_I began to beg for my life and that of my family but the giant gave me a quick shake and said, "Shut up before I snap your neck, peasant."_

_They took me into the house which was lit up on every floor but seemed to be empty. There were a few crates in the entranceway and I could see a painting in one of them and some old books in another. The big Russian carried me into a library where a slight man with long black hair was facing away from me. He turned as we entered and I could see those same red eyes. _

_"Alec, Felix, well done. I hadn't expected a meal so soon." The man walked closer to me. I shivered both in fear and from the cold. Although every light in the house was on the fires had long since gone out._

_"This little one slipped past us on our way out. If the wind hadn't changed directions you would have caught him yourself." The one I now knew was Felix spoke in a loud voice. Alec hissed at him and the man glanced in between them with a slight smile. As sinister as the first two were he was even more malevolent in his quiet calm._

_"Alec, don't be like that. It's important that I know if our new friend here is special." The man stepped up to me and stood facing me. He looked at me curiously for a minute and then spoke softly._

_"What's your name?" he asked me in Russian and then repeated himself in Ukranian. _

_"My name is Dymtro Ivanchuk Shevchenko," I said, hoping that giving him my full family name might convince him that I was important or at least remind him that I had a family._

_"Interesting," the man said, examining me still and then, reaching out to me, put his cold, white hand on my face. I tried to pull away but the big Russian held me in place. I became dizzy, disoriented and I have no idea how long the man held my face in his hands. When my head cleared he was looking at me with a broad smile._

_"It seems our little friend, Dymtro, has a gift," he spoke to the others with his eyes still fixed on me. "You two will have to get me another meal, I have other plans for this one."_

_The man signaled for the Russian to hold on to me and he leaned into me again and bit my neck. As everything went black I could hear him shushing me softly, saying, "Don't fret, little one. It'll be over soon and think of how magnificent you'll be."_

_What followed was three days of burning agony and confusion, but you just experienced it, right? The difference, Nick, is that you knew what you were becoming and you were among your family and people that you trusted._

_I woke up in a strange place, a stone castle, surrounded by creatures I had never seen before. My first thought was for the welfare of my family but Aro assured me that he had sent Felix to give them money and some cattle from the manor. I was also told that I could never return to them, that it would mean their deaths. _

_I was introduced to what we are by members of Aro's guard. I was taught my place in my new world._

_I quickly found that being a member of Aro's guard was much like being in the army. I had no freedom, no autonomy and no privacy, thanks to Aro's gift. I had no control and I had no choice. _

_This was my existence for nearly thirty-five years, until Isabella arrived._

_Must I guard my words here to protect you, Edward? You know that we were lovers, will you begrudge me speaking of her? You are the one who insisted on hearing this._

_I know what you are to each other, perhaps better than you do._


	14. Demitri pt 2 Journal of Edward M pt 6

**Last time on "Bella makes Edward miserable for six decades": Demitri, who Edward knew had been Bella's lover (from his thoughts when he saw them in San Francisco) showed up and warned them that they needed all the help they could get against the Volturi and suggested that they change Nick. Then Nick (with Edward insisting on listening in) heard part of Demitri's story. **

Demitri:

Isabella arrived - dirty from traveling - in a cotton dress and a man's sport coat that she had taken off of a victim - in the spring of 1955.

She walked straight into the Volturi court and demanded to speak to Aro. They could have killed her for her insolence. Jane would have liked to, and she wasn't the only one. We spent our time kowtowing to Aro, Caius and Marcus, praising them and following their every whim. This creature showing up, demanding to see Aro, refusing to request an audience, refusing to follow protocol, sent many of the court into a rage.

I was entranced. Her actions, her attitude, reminded me of freedom.

Aro agreed to see her, perhaps out of shock, and she walked right up to him, disregarding the hissing of his sentries, and held out her hand to his. He took her outstretched hand in his.. Aro's face darkened in concentration and then in frustration before he finally let go of her hand and smiled.

"How remarkable." he said and invited her to sit next to him. Unheard of, it was an incredible honor to be allowed to be seated in front of them, one that was reserved for very few. I had only seen it once before.

Isabella quickly ingratiated herself with Aro, she became his…pet? These words: "ingratiate" and "pet" are inadequate. She never needed to grovel or fawn to him like the rest of us. She seemed to win him over with her insolence and with the mere fact of her silence. I don't think that they were intimate although he kept her close at all times. I mean that I know they were not; there were no secrets in that place, but they might as well have been. Perhaps Aro held back out of deference to his mate; perhaps she refused him. I don't know.

I do know that I wanted her. Not because she was beautiful, although she was, not because Aro had laid some claim on her, because that would have been signing my death warrant. And not because she had expressed any interest in me. She was simultaneously seductive and dismissive with everyone she encountered, regardless of gender.

I wanted her because she - despite being a member of the guard - managed to maintain that air of being untouchable, of autonomy, of a freedom that I could only fantasize about. Maybe it was because she was the only one whose mind Aro couldn't read but I swear it went beyond that.

But we all treated her with deference and caution because we could see that Aro favored her. She knew I was fascinated with her, she would give me the occasional knowing smile but I kept my distance.

Then in 1960 you showed up. I assume Nick here already knows what happened? After seeing that she had no interest in you or in returning to Carlisle's coven, Aro loosened up his grip on her, gave her a little more freedom.

He also offered her to me.

This makes you angry, Edward, but you insisted on being here for this. Do you want me to pretend it never happened? You knew when you saw us in San Francisco that we were lovers. And again in Aspen.

He hasn't told you about Aspen, Nick? You'll have to tell him the whole story, Edward. Aspen is where she lost Aro's trust. That was the last time he sent her out without…additional supervision. That was also when she stopped sharing my bed. It's probably not a coincidence.

Aro told me that he knew that I wanted her, and that if I wanted he would allow us to be lovers. I was offended by his offering her up like that and resentful that my life was so restricted that I could only be with her with his permission. I would have never approached her with Aro's proposition.

But she came to me that night.

She told me that she would never fall in love with me, that she was incapable of it, but that she would be my lover.

Not that it didn't have other, obvious benefits but being with her was a way of tasting that freedom she always had in her eyes, in her manner. No matter how enslaved we were, I could forget that in her arms.

Journal of Edward Masen

January 3, 1973

I have received another missive from Alice, directing me towards another encounter with Bella. I crumbled it up, furious, until it was dust but the details are burned into my infallible mind. I have no way to contact Alice at this time but the last time we encountered her and her silent, enigmatic husband I insisted that she stop telling me about Bella, that she cease to throw her into my face.

"We all have discomforts to bear, Edward." she spat at me but her face was tinged more by sadness than anger.

I didn't press the point as I could hear the agitation in her mate's mind at our conflict.

So she tortures me still. Damn Alice!

I will simply ignore it. Seeing Bella, "Isabella" as they call her now, only brings me distress. Even just thinking of her, which I must admit that I do on a daily basis, brings me dull pain, as if my insides were being pulled out slowly. Seeing her brings me the kind of shooting agony that can only be caused by the profound mix of wanting and desolation that she causes me. I cannot even begin to fathom what it would be like to touch her. Even thinking about it brings me pain.

How can I still want her? She is a monster, an immoral creature, a killer.

She has toyed with me and abandoned me and my family, consorted with the enemy and may well be prepared to betray us in other, more profound ways.

I have considered killing her, to see if that would end the discomfort. The problem with this idea is that I can't be positive that this won't just increase my sense of emptiness and despair. Plus, then the Volturi would surely retaliate against my family. And my family is one of the most important things in this life, if you could even call it that.

Truth be told, I'm not sure that I could do it.

But that doesn't mean that I am willing to put myself in her path of destruction again.

January 5, 1973

I am a fool.

I have done exactly as Alice expected and sought Bella out again. Largely, the results were predictable; Bella is a killer, a dedicated member of Aro's guard and she still tempts me with the same force with which she rejects me. But while her actions become more of a mystery to me; the more I keep thinking about them.

I waited until the last possible minute to make the decision to go to her and was forced to pay an exorbitant amount for my flight to the Western United States. I followed Alice's directions to Aspen, a resort town in Colorado. It is just after New Year's and the town was full of slumming old money, Euro-trash, rich college kids on vacation rock stars and drug dealers for all of the above. It is an excellent place for someone looking to drown themselves in sensation and amorality to come. It's just the sort of place I would expect to find Bella.

Alice had given me an address which I quickly found was among the newly built mansions that housed the pleasure-seekers of the town. I decided to approach the house from the rear to avoid being conspicuous, although there was little need. There was a party happening and I could hear the sounds and thoughts of the debauchees.

I was so distracted by the cloud of incoherence pouring out at me from the house that I failed to realize that there was a much more sober mind waiting outside in a copse of trees. I heard his mind and determined his location as he called my name.

"Edward Cullen, what a strange place to see you." Demitri, the immortal who had accompanied Bella last time I saw her, in whose thoughts I saw their trysts, stepped out of the cluster of trees.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see you." I said, watching him carefully for a threat. His body and face were still but his mind teemed with curiosity.

"Isabella is inside." He glanced over my shoulder at the house warily. "You don't intend to interfere, do you?"

"It depends upon your mission." I said, trying to pick details out of his head. I could see a face of a vampire I didn't know; longish brown-hair and a stocky build.

"His name is Matthew. He was changed recently, we don't know by whom." Demitri looked at me carefully. 'You can see his face, right? I mean, in my thoughts?"

I nodded and he continued. "He revealed our secret to a woman, we assume because he thought she was too intoxicated. He's also been less than careful about his…meal choices." Demitri winced and I saw the bodies of two young girls, lying in the snow, their bodies drained.

"She's dealing with him alone?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. No matter how I felt about Bella facing a potentially unbalanced newborn was dangerous.

"She's luring him out here. I think she can do that on her own, don't you?" I was infinitely familiar with how capable she was of luring men to her side, I wondered if Demitri was taunting me but his thoughts bore no malice.

"I won't interfere." I said, moving closer to the house. I could see a glassed off enclosure containing a hot tub. The party's attendees stood around in various states of dress, some in swimsuits and some in jeans and turtlenecks. The glass was steamed up from the tub but I could still see through it.

Then I saw her.

She wore a black bikini which revealed more of her pale body than I had ever seen before. Her undergarments of the 1950's had been less revealing than what passed for appropriate apparel in today's world. I could see the eyes following her as she approached the hot tub. I could hear the thoughts of the men around her, how they coveted her.

She stepped into the tub and reached an ivory arm out to a man whose back was to us. He took her hand and she guided his climb up out of the tub. When he cleared the crowd and turned slightly, I could see the very vampire I had seen in Demitri's mind. She had picked out and lured their target.

As we watched she pulled him closer and tilted her head up to whisper in his ear. His free hand came down to rest on her hip and she pulled her face away and gave him that seductive smile I had seen on her face so many years ago in my bedroom in New York City and in the cabin. I wanted to kill him for getting that smile from her. I wanted to tear his arm off for daring to touch her.

She led him out of sight and I took an involuntary step closer but Demitri placed a surprisingly gentle hand on my arm.

"Wait." he said. I restrained myself but just barely.

It was less than a minute later that a door opened up leading out onto a deck and Bella and her prey stepped out into the cold. I tried to listen to see if they had been observed. Stepping outside in the snow in a wet swimsuit would surely attract attention since it would be hazardous to anyone who wasn't a vampire. I found nothing in the sea of minds in the house. I thought for a moment I detected a familiar mind, but before I could focus on it, I was distracted by the approach of Bella and the doomed vampire.

It took him a moment to notice us, as distracted as he was by her. By the time he registered our presence Demitri was a split-second away from him. Too close for him to flee.

"What in the…" Matthew took in Demitri as Bella let go of his hand and Demitri grabbed him in a bear-hug.

"Matthew Holcomb, you have been sentenced to be executed by the court of the Volturi for the crimes of indiscretion and violating our primary rule. You do not reveal our nature to humans and allow them to live." Isabella spoke flatly, avoiding my eyes.

She nodded at Demitri grimly, and he let his captive go just long enough to grab the man's head and twist it off. It happened too fast for the doomed man to respond and his head dropped to the ground.

"We'll have to get the other one together." he said to her. "We'll put both of them in one of the abandoned cabins and burn the whole thing down." She nodded gravely and then looked at me.

"Edward, I didn't expect you. Are you here to help?" The corner of her mouth turned up in a wry grin but her face was inscrutable, her affect flat.

"You didn't mention another one?" I began to wonder again about the mind I had heard from the house. It was familiar, someone I had met before but not anyone I was familiar with. I strained to pick it up again but there were too many people in the house.

"A female. Older. She probably didn't make him, but she's been seen with him and must know what he's been up to." Demitri looked at me warily. An image came into his head and I saw why the mind inside was vaguely familiar. It was Tanya, a very old vampire, perhaps older than the Volturi themselves. She was a "vegetarian" like us and a friend of Carlisle's. Tanya had expressed a great deal of interest in me whenever we met which made me uncomfortable but that didn't mean that I didn't owe it to Carlisle to try to help her.

"I know her. She's always shown the utmost discretion. I doubt she was a party to what he was doing." Demitri frowned slightly and Bella turned her eyes to me and for the first time I saw a flash of emotion there. She looked...unsettled, her nostrils flared slightly in anger or distress. I couldn't tell exactly which.

"But, our orders are clear. We are supposed to destroy her as well." Demitri looked nervous and in his mind I could see him considering what would happen to them if they didn't follow orders. It was unpleasant, certainly not as quick or merciful as what they had done to Matthew.

"Demitri." Bella's voice was quiet. "Could you go get my clothes? They're in a bathroom right off the kitchen." Demitri nodded and turned to go into the house. Right before going up the stairs to the deck Bella had come from he looked back at us. I could hear the curiosity in his thoughts and a tinge of jealousy. I snorted. I wished I could tell him that there was no chance of her doing anything with me.

She turned to me. "This woman," she sneered. "How well do you know her?" I didn't need to be able to read her thoughts to be able to understand what she was asking. Her face showed anger, and I was confused as to the cause of it.

I considered lying to her and telling her that Tanya and I were lovers, to see if she would express any jealousy. But I doubted that I would get the response I wanted and I could endanger Tanya in the process of trying to provoke Bella.

"She's an acquaintance of Carlisle's. We've met a few times." She nodded slowly at me, the slight sneer frozen on her face, but there was no conviction behind it.

"And yet you're willing to take on the guard to protect her?" she asked. Her question should have sounded like a threat but it was more curious somehow. The door behind her opened again and Tanya and Demitri appeared in the doorway.

"Edward?" she callled, tilting her head in surprise. "What are you doing here?" Tanya came down the steps, elegant in a silk dress and high boots covered by a fur coat. She came towards us quickly, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one saw.

"Edward." Tanya said again, flirtatiously, tossing her hair. She gave a quick glance to Bella, who was taking her clothes from Demitri and quickly dressing. Bella should have looked vulnerable and bland, standing next to a brilliant, stunning creature like Tanya in such a state of undress. But to me, Bella was all I could see. Even when standing quietly there, she drew my eyes like a glowing coal.

"Tanya, this is Bella." I gestured to Bella. Tanya's eyes passed over her again and then settled on the severed head of Matthew behind her.

"I warned him he would attract the attention of the guard." she mused to me continuing to ignore Bella. I wanted to tell her that she needed to try to placate Bella as much as she could but I could see that Tanya was jealous and wanted to make her feel inferior.

Bella was still uncharacteristically quiet. Demitri looked at her carefully before speaking.

"We have orders to destroy both of you," he said. Tanya glanced at him quickly.

"I had nothing to do with his actions. When I realized that we were sharing the town, I warned him that he was attracting attention. Tanya's head filled with the assurance that this was a ploy on the part of the Volturi to get rid of her because of her age.

"We see that." Bella said quickly. "Come, Demitri, we're done here." he looked at her in shock, his mind filling with fear. She saw his concern.

"I'll tell Aro you wanted to fulfill orders and I wouldn't help. What could you do? You would be outnumbered." She gestured to me, not meeting my eyes.

"Bella," I said. Why was she doing this? She ignored me and began pulling Demitri away. He followed her, glancing back at us. "Lucky," he thought. But I couldn't tell whether he was talking about Tanya or myself.

Bella didn't give me a second glance as they left, leaving me with a stunned Tanya. She quickly overcame her confusion and regained her libido, however, and was making advances.

How could I? How could I think of engaging in a dalliance with Tanya when, for all her distance, for all her rejection, all I could think of was Bella? I wished that I could forget her, I wished that she didn't simultaneously reject and tempt me.

**a/n: The sublime EverlastingMuse beta's this and Liz3615 pre-reads it and cheers me on. Thanks for putting up with the interminable delays and history-a-palooza. Next chapter we will be back in the present for the majority of the story. Thanks for reading and reviewing! Xoxo JuJu**


	15. Phantoms pt 5

"_**As a child I saw many things I did not want to be.**_

_**Am I the person I did not want to be?**_

…_**Do I wear the cloth of a man who has failed?"**_

_**Gregory Corso**_

"_**Hello"**_

**Your "remember last month?" recap: Demitri talked about when Bella showed up in Volterra and then Edward's diary recounts seeing Demitri and Bella in Aspen in the 1970's where they had been sent to destroy a vampire who had been careless. They also had orders to destroy Tanya but Bella chose to disregard that order; frightening Demitri and confusing Edward.**

"We left Aspen and headed back to Volterra. I was sure that we would be killed for failing to complete the mission." Demitri looked at them with a bitter smile. "Isabella didn't seem to care."

"Aro read in my mind what had happened. I know that he wouldn't have believed the story about being outnumbered. Everyone knows the Cullen's reputation for…passivity."

"He didn't kill us, obviously. After that he didn't send us on missions together without being accompanied by Felix or Jane. To make sure we finished the job, I guess." Demitri focused his attention on a spot on the wall. "He didn't send her out much after that at all. But he didn't seem any less fascinated by her. If anything, he kept her closer."

"She stopped…we stopped…" he shook his head and frowned. "Something had gone out, something was gone…"

Demitri abruptly stopped talking and got up from his chair. He walked over to the window and looked out at the surrounding orchard, his jaw clenching.

Nick put his pen down. He knew he didn't really have to record the story but having the pen and paper in front of him helped him to focus on what he was doing here, rather than getting distracted by the myriad of new sensations coming from his changed body: the thirst, the strength, and the fact that he could hear and smell everything. He could even hear it when Edward grabbed the arm of his chair too tight or ground his teeth together at seemingly random times in the narrative. This was always followed by an apologetic look from Demitri, and Nick guessed that it had to do with thoughts of Bella.

Nick watched Edward squint slightly at Demitri as he watched the slight man clench and unclench his fists.

"What is the point of telling my story at this point?" Demitri stared out the window as he spoke. "So many decades and what is the point? Who am I? A soldier who abandoned his post? A son who couldn't protect his family? Aro's loyal servant? Lover to a woman who belongs to someone else?"

"You left them and cast your lot in with us." Nick spoke gently. "Even though we'll be out-numbered. You're standing up to him now."

Demitri turned and looked at Nick. "I knew that he didn't provide for my family. There was nothing I could do at that point but I knew that he was telling me that so that I would go quietly. I assumed that he lied and I knew I couldn't go back to see if they were all right. I figured that they may or may not have survived but I assumed he had just left them alone."

"He had them killed." Edward said, looking at Demitri. Demitri nodded,his face stoic.

"They would have died anyway, of starvation. There were others in the village. He didn't have to kill them."

"How did you find out?" Nick asked.

"Alice," he said. He paused for a moment. "Felix and I were sent out together to Kiev. It was the closest I'd been to home since the fall of the Soviet Union. I was starting to visit government offices and hospitals to see if I could find out anything. Alice found me instead. She told me who she was and what happened and told me to ask Felix, that he would corroborate her story if I asked him…since he was the one who had brought them to Aro to feed on while I was changing. She told me how to find you here if I decided to leave." He paused. "I didn't bother talking with Felix. She knew enough about the circumstances to convince me. I knew it was true. I had always known it. I stopped in Rome to grab some things I had stashed there and came here."

"What about Bella? You just left her there?" Nick was surprised and appalled by his actions. "I thought you cared about her."

Demitri looked at him with annoyance. "Bella makes her own choices. Just ask Edward." Nick glanced at Edward who was examining Demitri closely.

"There's something you're not telling us." Edward said finally. "I can't get a clear read on it but you're holding back."

Demitri smiled wryly. "It's hard to hold back with him here." He gestured to Nick. "But some things are private. Right, Edward?" He looked at Edward with a pointed look, as if they shared a secret. Edward nodded slowly.

"Anyway, they'll be here soon." Demitri turned back to them. "We should have a plan."

"I suspect Alice will let us know what to do." Edward said. "She's here."

^O^ ^O^ ^O^

"How can you say that the best course of action is to stand back and wait?" Emmett's eyes glanced around at the rest of them for agreement. Nick glanced around the room at the rest of their faces. Carlisle and Esme looked thoughtful, as did the Greeks. Demitri eyed Alice warily and Nick was amused to see that Edward's expression matched his.

Personally, he didn't know what to think of what the small, dark haired woman said. He only knew that she had expressed no surprise at seeing the assemblage and that as soon as she arrived, with her tall, blond mate, she greeted them all with the odd air of someone whose conversation had only briefly interrupted, jumping immediately into their talk of what to do when the Volturi arrived.

Her mate, on the other hand, was quiet and watchful.

Demitri spoke up. "There are only eleven of us and many more of them. Aro will bring the entire guard and probably the wives as well, since they cannot be protected without the guard there. Acting first would give us an advantage."

"It seems that Alice would be in a position to know." Carlisle said gently. "Didn't you come here at her suggestion? Why would you doubt her now?"

"I agree with Demitri's reticence." Edward interjected. "She's withholding information. She blocks me." He glared at her.

"The outcome changes based on how much information I give you." Alice said, her voice more sad than angry. "If I tell you too much, it affects how you respond and everything we've tried to do will fall apart." She fixed her gaze on Edward but her eyes took on a kind of blankness. As Nick watched Edward's face took on an expression that made him look as though he was listening to something no one else could hear. They remained that way for a minute before Alice shook her head as if to clear it. Edward looked alarmed.

"And you can guarantee that won't happen now?" he asked her, frowning.

"No," Alice said with an apologetic look. "But our chances get better this way."

"What did you see?" Carlisle asked, looking between the two of them.

Edward looked at Carlisle and shook his head. "You'd rather not know."

"I don't even understand why it concerns us." Rosalie said angrily. "We've done nothing wrong. We should just leave Aro to sort out his beef with you." she addressed Cyril and Andreas. "There's no reason why we have to engage them. There's no reason for us to take up with someone who's left the guard." She glared at Demitri.

"It's not that simple, Rose." Alice began but Demitri cut her off. "May I?" he asked, waiting for her acquiescence. Alice nodded to him after a moment.

"You're right, you don't have to engage in this fight _now_. But it will come to you eventually. Aro has made no secret of his dislike for your family and how you pose a threat to our kind. You have a large…group and you live among humans. You can chose to meet him now, with the support of the Greeks and myself, or you can wait until he finds a reason to come after you when your numbers are less. It's your choice."

"But why now?" Rosalie asked, looking from Demitri to Alice to Edward. "After all this time, why come after us now, when we have the strength of numbers?"

Edward looked at Alice. The small graceful woman let out a sigh and looked chagrinned.

"Because we are all together." she said, reluctantly. Rose exploded.

"But that was your work! You brought us all together!" The blond drew up to her full height and raged at the slight figure. Jasper took a step closer to his wife and shot Rose a warning look.

"I know." Alice said, pleading with Rose. "It was the best outcome I could find."

"So we just have to trust you." Emmett said, stroking his wife's shoulder lightly, a rare worried look on his face. He looked to his brother and raised an eyebrow curiously. Edward frowned and nodded slightly.

"She's telling the truth to the best of her ability," he said. "She has to, with these guys around." He gestured to the Greeks who had been watching the exchange calmly.

"Then it's decided," Carlisle spoke, rising from his chair and walking over to where Alice stood slowly. "We have no choice but to trust you, Alice. Please don't betray that trust."

Alice nodded at him solemnly. She opened her mouth to speak, stopped and then continued. "We wanted to be part of your family." She reached behind her and took the hand of her mate. "We were supposed to be able to join you decades ago."

"What stopped you?" Nick interjected. Alice glanced at him and then at her mate.

"I can't say any more now." She smiled at him bitterly. "If it all works, I'll be able to tell you my story." She glanced around the room. "The Volturi will be here in an hour."

"How many?" Andreas asked.

"They are bringing almost the entire court, including the wives." Alice said, her eyes glazing over slightly again.

"The wives?" Esme asked. "Why?"

"Because if Aro brings the guard, there'll be no one to protect the wives. His mate and Caius'. You know how vampires get when their mates are in danger." He looked at Edward who shot him a quick, angry glance. If Nick hadn't been paying attention he would have missed it.

"What about Bella?" Nick asked, receiving the same angry glance from Edward.

Alice looked somber. "She'll be with them, too."

^O^ ^O^ ^O^

They agreed to follow Alice's directions, since she could see the outcomes as they changed.

"Just one suggestion," Demitri spoke up. "Aro doesn't know about you. Or if he does he doesn't know what you can do. If things go poorly and he knows that you can predict the future, he won't leave you alone."

Alice looked at her husband grimly and then back to the former guard member. "I've been assuming that if we don't stop Aro that we wouldn't make it. That's one possible outcome." She glanced around apologetically as she said this.

'But an even worse outcome would be for Aro to know about your ability and to be able to use it against any of us who do survive, or the rest of the world." Edward looked thoughtful as he spoke.

"It'll work." she said. He nodded.

"What'll work?" Emmett asked, frowning.

"Alice will relay orders to me and I'll give them," Edward said. "Come on. Let's go wait for our guests."

They stood around one half of the giant stone circle and waited, each of them lost in their own thoughts and alert to the sounds around them.

Edward heard them first and he told them: "Five minutes." A few moments later Nick could hear the sound of dozens of light footsteps and the swishing of clothing against trees and brush.

Then they came into sight. A small blond-haired girl and a dark-haired boy in grey robes entered the circle, followed by a huge man, easily Emmett's size but without his gentle smile.

Several more robed figures followed them and spread out on the other side of the ancient circle, making way for three elegantly dressed men; a young blond, and two older men with long dark hair. The taller of the two looked tired and disinterested, the shorter one had a lively, curious expression and a smile. At least two dozen other vampires stood behind them, clad either in robes or dark, fancy-dress clothes.

And standing next to the smiling man, looking bored and lethal, was Bella.

**a/n: Thank you for your infinite patience and your reviews. I have no excuse. I am a lazy, lazy person. On a positive note, we're done with set-up and might get some actual present time action, if you're into that sort of thing. I took a month to write this and EverlastingMuse and Liz3615 took like an hour to get it back to me. They are far superior creatures. Thanks for reading! JuJu**


	16. Journal of Edward Masen pt 7

"_**I have just realized that the stakes are myself**_

_**I have no other**_

_**Ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life**_

_**My spirit measured out, in bits, spread over**_

_**The roulette table…"**_

**Revolutionary Letter #1**

**Diane Di Prima**

**Journal of Edward Masen**

**November 20, 2010**

I don't know what to make of the events of the last twenty-four hours. Nothing could have surprised me more than finding us in the position that we are currently.

This endless, changeless existence doesn't prepare you for these kind of universe shifting events, and I admit, my experience has definitely made me so jaded as to be dumbstruck. When you live through the dull agony that my last six decades have brought; the paranoia, dissatisfaction and frustration, to suddenly have your worldview turned upon it's axis is disorienting at best.

It began with finding my family and I facing what looked like our end at the hands of the Volturi with unlikely allies like Alice and her mate, not to mention Demitri.

Demitri. How do I categorize my feelings towards the former member of the guard, former lover of the creature with whom I have been obsessed? I feel pity and anger and a strange sort of empathy, a type of brotherhood. I suppose it would be offensive to suggest that he and I start a support group for men who have been unable to possess Isabella Swan to the degree to which they would like. It is a painful joke to make, one that catches in my throat. But he sees my understanding, and he looks at me with the same sympathy I give to him. We have an unspoken, uncomfortable fellowship.

I am sure that his eyes were drawn to the same place mine were: Bella, standing next to a smiling, satisfied Aro. She looked uninterested, a response that was surely contrived, given that there were upwards of thirty immortals facing each other in an imminent confrontation.

Carlisle stepped forward cautiously.

"Aro, Caius, Marcus. Welcome." he said, glancing at each of them deferentially.

"Carlisle," Aro spoke. "I was hoping to see you again under less…traitorous circumstances." I could hardly contain my ire; Aro knew that we hadn't come together with intention of defying the Volturi. I could see in his thoughts that he was pleased with himself that he had been able to convince Marcus and Caius that we had.

"Aro, I…" Carlisle attempted to speak but Aro cut him off.

"There could be no other reason for you to be here. We have made it clear that Cyril and any who join him are enemies to us." I could see that Aro was careful not to look at the Greeks and that he had carefully positioned himself as far away as possible from them.

Appalled by his ploy, I started to rebut what Aro had said by mentioning that we had never even been aware of their existence, but Alice's voice in my head stopped me.

"_Wait!"_ I met her eyes and she nodded slightly.

"We will, of course, discuss this before handing out punishments, but I think it's fairly clear what is happening here." Aro crossed his arms casually and gave Bella a quick glance. He was making sure she was watching his performance. To my surprise her eyes weren't on him but on me, only for a split second, but long enough for me to see a look I'd never seen on Bella's face. It looked like…longing and determination and concern, all at the same time.

The look passed as soon as I took note of it and Bella still stood impassive, frozen in place. But as he turned away she moved, so quickly that even the circle full of vampires couldn't anticipate it. I saw it a split second ahead of time in Alice's thoughts, but I was still astounded at what I saw.

As Aro turned away, Bella grabbed onto his upper arms from the back as she kicked his legs out from under him. She grabbed onto his other arm as he fell to the ground and she positioned herself on his back, pinning his arms down with her knees. She landed so hard on his back that we could all hear a cracking sound and then we heard the sound of vampire bones and cartilage tearing again as she grabbed his head between her hands and twisted it hard, farther than his head would have turned naturally.

The thoughts of every immortal in the circle shrieked surprise with the exception of Alice but no one moved. Not Aro's brothers, not his guard, not a soul came to his defense as Bella twisted his face towards hers and flared her nostrils slightly, a determined, furious look on her face.

"Bella/" the firm, quiet voice came from the last place I would have expected. Cyril stepped forward and held out a hand to pull her attention away from destroying Aro. She looked up at him, glaring, shocked.

"It's not your revenge, Bella. Your claim is not the greatest here." She flared her nostrils at him and her mouth twisted into a sneer but she paused.

Next to me, Demitri took a tentative step forward. Cyril looked at him with that compassionate, ancient gaze. Alice screamed in my mind: "Not him! It's can't be him!" and I saw an image of the Volturi launching themselves upon us en masse.

But before I could intervene, Cyril shook his head gently at Demitri and shook his head.

"Killing your mortal family should be avenged but when you separate a vampire, an immortal creature from his mate for eternity, _that _is a greater trespass." Absurdly, nonsensically, Demitri's eyes flickered to me and the image that filled his head…I struggled to comprehend it. It was Isabella and I, as we had never been, in a relaxed embrace, her head resting upon my chest as she lay between my legs. There was something fuzzy and indistinct about the image, like the memories of a human or something seen through a haze.

When I regained my composure I shook my head at Demitri and started to rebut his vision.

"Demitri…that never…we're not…" but I was cut off my Cyril's deep, dusty voice.

"Marcus, my friend.." he summoned the oldest, most disconnected of the brothers. Marcus turned his attention to Cyril slowly, as if coming out of a dream. Recognition lit his face slowly. It was as if he hadn't even been aware of where he was.

"Cyril…" Marcus' face took on a sad smile and then he winced. "I couldn't argue against them, Cyril. To amass such a large group." Marcus waved his hand feebly to the assembly on our side of the circle.

Cyril smiled and waved his hand dismissively. "You did the right thing, coming here." He beckoned Marcus closer and walked towards where Bella held Aro pinned to the ground. It would have been almost comical if it weren't so confusing, to see these two men addressing each other with such courtesy while a furious vampire held another to the ground, twisting his head back beyond it's supernatural tolerances.

As Marcus and Cyril approached from different directions Aro's face twisted with fear even more and he attempted to call out to his brother. But at the first sound of his strangled voice. Bella jerked his head in warning and he fell silent. I could hear his panic, though, he was desperate to not let Marcus and Cyril speak.

But that is exactly what Cyril intended, and he and Marcus stopped just feet from the imperiled head of the Volturi.

"Marcus," Cyril asked gently. "Who killed Didyme?" Marcus jerked away sharply at the question and his head filled with the images that he had clearly been trying to avoid with his gentle stupor: his dark-haired wife, the two of them laughing, his despair since their death. I found myself filled with compassion for him, he had been suffering her absence so long.

"Who killed Didyme, Marcus?" Cyril prompted again and Marcus flinched less this time and he tried to speak.

"I don't…" his eyes shot to Aro and them back to Cyril, filled with uncertainty. "I don't know…I'm not _certain_." I could see the thoughts now flying in Marcus' head. It was dizzying for him after being in his self-induced fog for so long. He suspected Aro but he couldn't prove it and couldn't do anything about it. He had hidden the issue from himself in his fog and he was angry at Cyril for waking him up to feel the pain again.

"Aro," Cyril's voice was sharper. "Who killed Didyme?"

Aro's eyes went wide and his mouth opened and then closed. I could see his act in his head, how he caught Marcus' wife alone in an uninhabited part of the city, how she greeted him warmly, even his twinge of regret as he tore her head from her body and set her body on fire. How he lied to Marcus and comforted his brother over the loss of his mate.

"You know who did it, Marcus." Cyril spoke gently again and Marcus nodded slowly, turning to Aro.

"Marcus, she would have turned you away from your brothers!" Aro's voice came out panicked and desperate. "She was a danger to us!"

Marcus regarded his brother sadly. "She was my mate, my wife, Aro. You know what it feels like to lose your mate, you've seen it in my head." There was no surprise in Marcus' thoughts, just resignation.

Marcus turned to Caius without waiting for a response from Aro. Caius paused a second and then nodded his head at Marcus. Then Marcus looked to Sulpicia, Aro's wife.

"Sulpicia, if you say to spare him, I will." Suplicia's face twisted with emotion but she nodded as well and made her way from the back of the assembly to where they stood.

"Marcus, I…what Aro has done is wrong…all of it." She waved her hand at the assembled immortals. "But you have to promise to do the same for me." She gestured to Aro. I was amazed to see…relief in her thoughts. Her mind flickered through a series of increasingly brutal acts on Aro's part; driving Cyril out, convincing Caius to come after my family.

"Sulpicia, you can't…" Sulpicia held a hand up to Marcus to stop his words.

"I am tired of this life, Marcus. And I have seen what it's like for you to live without your mate. It would be a mercy."

Marcus nodded slowly and then he turned to Aro. He gestured for Bella to release him. She did so, reluctantly and Marcus pulled on his brother's body until he was on his knees.

Aro began to struggle and look around at his guard. "Surely you won't do this? Jane? Felix?" I could hear a mixture of impulses in the thoughts of the guard, and then I hear Alice giving me a direction.

"Emmett. Demitri." I got their attention just as Felix launched himself from the still crowd towards where Marcus and his brother were still connected.

My brother and Demitri sprung forward and managed to catch Felix by the legs as he reached his master. They managed to get him subdued, Emmett on his legs and Demitri at his head and they looked to me. I paused for a moment to get direction from Alice. I simply took the tasks I saw being done in her head and delegated them.

"Andreas. Nick. Start a fire." I gestured to an open space outside the circle. "Bella, hold Aro still." It was the first time I had addressed her in three decades and her name felt strange in my mouth, unwieldy and textured. I nodded to Emmett and Demitri.

"He won't change his mind. Destroy him." The commands felt weird coming out of my mouth although they would have been even stranger coming from Alice. I felt bellicose, uncaring. I wondered how the assembly perceived me. I wondered how Bella perceived me.

I got the next directive from Alice. I approached the twins, Jane and Alec. They were the last to hold onto allegiance to Aro but they were wavering. They weren't willing to die to defend Aro, but they weren't sure they would follow whoever was left to lead. They feared that Carlisle would take command and that they would be forced to abandon their diet of humans and to integrate with the humans who had persecuted them in their human lives.

I imagined a compromise and Alice nodded.

"You can go." I said to them. "Don't try to avenge Aro, be discreet. We won't follow you." The twins looked at each other and then Jane looked back at me and nodded. In unison, they took of their robes and dropped them on the ground. They turned and wove through the assembled members of the guard and left the circle.

There were still mixed feelings among the assembled crowd when it came to the execution of the three immortals, especially Sulpicia. But she begged and convinced Marcus and Caius that it was an act of mercy and kissed his hands as he grasped her head and prepared to separate it from her body.

We burned their bodies and sat down to decide what would happen next.

Bella refused to take part in the discussion and I wanted to seek her out, find out the reasons why, get my questions answered, but my presence was required at the negotiations because of my abilities.

So I talked and listened and negotiated and wondered what would happen next.

**a/n: Again, it takes me three weeks to write this and EverlastingMuse and Liz3615 get it back to me in hours. They're **_**that **_**good. I also want to thank DarkBlueBella for recc'ing this in her sublime and mystical story: "The Selkie Man." If you're not reading it, well, I just don't know what to say. Just don't complain that there's a lack of original and inventive fan-fiction plots. **

**I'm on Twitter as badjujube if you want to read my tweets about baseball, prog rock, nail polish and (occasionally) fan-fiction. Also, if you're into this sort of thing, which clearly I am, two pieces of music that have a big influence on this story are Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" and Pink Floyd's "Dogs". **

**Thanks for reading! xoxo JuJu**


	17. Journal of Edward Masen pt 8

_**a/n: Ok, just to warn you, this is un-beta'ed. Proceed at your own risk of reading my atrocious grammar and ninja words.**_

"_**It is some time since I have been**_

_**to what it was had once turned me**_

_**and made my head into**_

_**a cruel instrument."**_

_**The Hill**_

_**Robert Creeley**_

_**Journal of Edward Masen**_**  
**_**November 22, 2010**_

_Marcus has what humans call "a new lease on life." After centuries wallowing in the soup of his misery after the loss of his mate, he suddenly was reenergized as he enthusiastically planned and negotiated a détente with us._

_Carlisle idealistically suggested that there was no need for an organization like the Volturi, that it had simply fed and encouraged Aro's hunger for power, that any such organization couldn't help but abuse it's power._

_Alice interjected then and explained what would happen if there were no one to police our kind: immortals would become careless, we would be dangerously exposed, others would attempt to fill the power gap. We managed to convince Carlisle that a governing body and a "police force" of some sort were necessary._

_So it was agreed that Caius and Marcus would continue to lead a smaller, less centralized governing body and that one of the Greeks would join them, first Andreas and then Nick when he was a little "older." Carlisle and Alice would join them in making major decisions, something that would necessitate them meeting quarterly and on an ad hoc basis. _

_Members of the guard who had been forced to join or who no longer wished to serve would be allowed to leave without consequence. _

_Demitri, surprisingly, chose to return to Italy. He decided that his problem with being a member of the guard had been the lack of freedom and his resentment of Aro. Now that these conditions had been eliminated and he felt he had a role in the coup, like any revolutionary, he felt committed to the cause._

_After the negotiations were complete the majority of the guard left Greece, leaving only my family, including Alice and Jasper, the Greeks, Bella, Demitri and Marcus behind. Bella had kept her distance from my family and she and I had been circling around each other's orbits like fighters in a ring for days._

_I was behind the ramshackle stone house trying to decide when to make my move and try to speak to Bella when I heard Demitri approach. We had exchanged few words over the last few days but we always spoke to each other with exquisite, awkward gentleness._

_He had the weathered pack he had brought with him and he raised a hand to me tentatively. I could hear from his thoughts that he wanted to speak with me and I nodded my acquiescence. _

_"Edward, I apologize for keeping things from you…I didn't feel like it was…I felt like it was personal, like you would rather not have Nick hear some things." He was examining his perception of me as sheltered and emotionally inexperienced. I shook my head at him._

_"I understand. It's awkward, I know. I can't blame you for the fact that she chose to be with you." _

_Demitri snorted and his face took on an angry, impatient expression as he spoke, shaking his head at me._

_"You are deliberately choosing not to understand me. Is it easier for you to pretend not to know?" I looked at him, bewildered._

_"Have you any idea what it's like to be with the other half of a mated pair?" he said, frowning. "It's like being in love with a ghost. It's like making love with a woman who's staring over your shoulder looking for someone else." _

_"You're wrong, Demitri. She's not…"_

_"Listen, Edward, you don't know anything." He took a second to calm down and began to speak to me again. His voice started out quietly but grew in intensity as he spoke._

_"Aro sent Bella and I out together on a job in 1986. He sent Jane and Alec with us to make sure we didn't make any mistakes." Demitri eyed me, making sure I knew he was referring to what had happened in Aspen. "We were in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, following up on a rumor about a large coven."_

_"A man approached me and asked me if I was interested in art. I told him off and walked away but he said he had a painting of a woman that looked like my girlfriend." I winced at Demiti's casual word. "Girlfriend." What an expression to apply to her._

_Demitri looked at me apologetically. "She and I were no longer together…in that way. That had stopped after…after seeing you in Aspen. I was curious so I asked to see his paintings. He explained that he was the great-nephew of an important artist who had died many years before."_

_"Salvador," I breathed._

_"Yes. The paintings had been left with a note that they were a gift for a young man who had rented a house from him in the 1950's. He had expected the young man to come back and he had painted him with his…intended."_

_I understood then what I had seen in Demitri's head the day before, it was a painting of Bella and I._

_"You have to understand, Demitri. That never happened. Bella and I were never... It's just a painting."_

_Demitri looked at me with irritation and then continued. "I bought the painting from him. I never showed Isabella. Aro knew about it, no doubt, but he never mentioned it." Demitri reached into the dark leather pack and pulled out a tube wrapped in an old piece of fabric. He unwrapped it and slowly unrolled a stiff, painted canvas. It was, as I suspected, the image that I'd seen in Demitri's head._

_It was Bella and I, reclining together in a forest or jungle, surrounded by green. She lay in between my legs with her head and shoulders on my chest and my hands were tangled up in her long, dark hair. We looked…peaceful and intimate in a way that were had never been. I experienced a sharp feeling of longing in my empty chest._

_"It isn't real," I said to him flatly, not taking my eyes off the canvas._

_"I'm not saying that she's in love with you or you her. I'm saying that I saw this and it all made sense. The things that she did when you were around. The way she acted when you and Carlisle visited in the fifties, the girl in San Francisco."_

_My mind went back to Bella's predatory kiss with a dazed flower child in a room full of dancing and music and smoke. I looked at him, confused._

_"Bella doesn't feed on young girls. Ever. I couldn't figure out why she would pretend that she was going to kill that girl." I stared at him._

_"And this," he said, pulling an old, slim tie out of the bag. It was black silk with blue flecks. Esme had bought it for me in New York in the late forties. _

_"Bella had it," he says to my questioning eyes. "Isabella doesn't have anything and she had this. She has a few items of clothing. She refuses to keep anything else. I've given her jewelry; she's refused to take it or she's given it away. Aro gave her books and she burned them. But she had this." I took the tie from him and stared down at it._

_"It's yours, isn't it?" I nodded. "I don't think you two are in love with each other," he repeated. "I don't even think you know who she is. I know her better than you do. But I think that you are her mate and she is yours. I don't know why she did any of this but maybe she'll tell you. Or maybe that little psychic will. I know Alice has something to do with it. But you'll have to stop her from going back to Italy." _

_"She's going back to Italy?" My mood blackened at his words. I guess, without acknowledging it I had hoped that she would stay here, that I would have a chance to talk with her. Resigned, I said to Demitri: "Well, if she still wants to be part of the guard, that's her right." Demitri shook his head at me and I saw his response in his head before he spat it at me._

_"She's not going back to be part of the guard. She asked Marcus to destroy her."_

_"What?" I couldn't let this happen._

_"He argued feebly but who wants to have someone around who…you saw how she turned on Aro. She bided her time for sixty years while pretending to be his loyal pet. As thankful as Marcus is he can't trust her. He only told me out of sympathy." Demitri's eyes pleaded with me._

_I got up to go, to try to catch her. But I couldn't help but turn and ask one more question._

_"Why did you tell me all this?" I gestured to the painting, the tie._

_"If I have a mate out there, I would want someone to do the same." He shrugged. "And just because she couldn't love me doesn't mean that I don't love her."_

_I nodded and murmured my thanks as I made my way back into the house. I glanced around the rooms quickly, increasing my speed as I made my way through the old house with no sign of her._

_I encountered Alice in the big front room we had first made the Greeks' acquaintance. She made eye contact with me and gestured towards the front of the house, the broken stone circle where we had confronted the Volturi._

_I broke into a run, only slowing as I saw Bella making her way towards the road, halfway across the circle. I could tell from her minute change in posture that she knew I was there but she didn't stop or turn around._

_"Bella," I said, my voice sounding more commanding than I felt I had a right to be._

_She took one more step and then stopped, stiffly, still not turning around. I caught up to where she was._

_I walked around her until I was facing her, positioned between her and the exit. She refused to look at me, staring into the distance with her jaw tensing._

_"Where are you going?" I said, my surprise coming out in my voice. I hated to expose this weakness to her but it slipped out._

_"I don't belong to you," she said, monotone, refusing to look at me. I still couldn't read her mind but her words lacked conviction._

_"Lies," I said. She looked at me furiously._

_"I don't want you!" she spat. I reached out and grabbed her chin so she couldn't look away._

_"You're lying," I said, looking down at her. She practically trembled with fury under my fingers._

_She reached up and grabbed my biceps, pushing me away from her path. She was so much smaller than me and weakened by what was probably hunger that she wouldn't have been able to budge me had I resisted. I let her move me, however, but quickly stepped back into place, wrapping my arms around her to contain her._

_She fought me, again trying to throw me off. This time she pushed me farther and tried to make for the opening at the far side of the circle._

_I caught her immediately from behind but she ducked down and tossed me over her. I landed easily on my feet. When I approached her again she reached for me and tried to dig her fingers into my neck. I tossed her off balance and away but she flew much further than I had intended, rolling and hitting the stone wall to our side._

_I moved to her immediately, thinking that she would leap back up and try to get away but she was clearly jarred by the impact and it took her longer than I expected to get her feet under her. Her eyes were black with hunger and she seemed…exhausted._

_We locked together again when she was on her feet and this time we both gripped each other closely and tumbled together several times over, like fighting cats, her teeth and fingers trying to tear into me. I tried to hold her close without hurting her or allowing her to hurt me too much. I know at one point her teeth dug into my cheekbone and I tasted the skin of her upper arm under my mouth as I struggled to restrain her._

_There were shreds of clothing littering the ground and we were covered in dirt and disheveled from our struggles when she got away from me again and regained her footing. She tried to escape again but I caught her after a few feet and spun her around to face me. She looked feral and desperate_

_She stood, gripping my sides as if to try to attack or to throw me again. She seemed poised to tear into me, the tension radiating off her straining arms. And then, suddenly, the resistance left her arms and she collapsed into me, going limp against my chest. Then her knees seemed to give out and she slumped to the ground._

_I dropped with her to my knees and wrapped my arms around her again. Her face was buried in my chest and she trembled, using every bit of strength she had to cling to me. She seemed exhausted and demoralized, starved and battered. She had given up._

_After six decades, Bella Swan had finally stopped fighting me._

_**a/n pt deux: My eternal thanks to Liz3615 for pre-reading this. You should probably thank her, too. This was originally twice as long but the second part, where Bella resumes her story, was apparently did not give off the romantic, optimistic tone I was hoping for. I don't want to break anyone's hearts so I'll post it when it meets with her approval! Thanks for reading! xoxo JuJu**_


	18. Ghosts pt 5Visions

"_**I must tell you that I was always afraid of the fury with which I loved you. It overwhelmed me. I thought it beyond comprehension, therefore my silence."**_

_**Henry Rollins**_

_**Ghosts pt. 5**_

I know I owe you the rest of the story, Nick, but I just don't know if I have the heart to tell it. I had never envisioned _living_ to tell it. I thought I could just sneak out and never have to answer to either of you.

It's a pity you don't have his gift. Then you could just read Alice's mind.

She showed you, didn't she Edward? How Aro had been determined to destroy you and your family long before I came along, how the only way to get to the support of Caius and Marcus was by exposing Aro's secret, how without Nick, Cyril and Andreas wouldn't have the will to confront him, how I was the only one who could get close enough to Aro to bring him down, how everything had to happen in exactly the right order to survive Aro's ambitions. It was an enormous spider web of events and the deadly creature in the center? Perhaps it was Aro; more likely it was me. I certainly fit the profile.

But back to the beginning? I went back to the Bowery after you sent me away that night in New York. I was devastated. I had offered myself on a platter to an angel-faced virgin judge and he had screamed at me to leave.

I took the first trick I could find and then the next and the next.

Edward, I see you wincing. You think that you want me; you think that you want _this_. If you want me the way you think you do you have to know all of it, don't you? I'm not trying to push you away; I'm trying to tell you who I am when I'm not longing for you. But then, when have I ever _not_ longed for you? I know that surprises you. I had to keep it from you. If I told you what you were to me you wouldn't have let me go play my part and we all would have died. Surely Alice showed you all that, too.

I took their money, fixed, killed your memory, woke up and repeated the cycle. For a short time I had whole hours where I didn't think of you. After I was changed I no longer had the luxury. That became the worst part of being a vampire. Not being able to smother my memory of you in sleep or dope or other men. Although I tried. Poor Demitri.

I was reckless. I was robbed, beaten up, raped. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything. I hated myself and I hated you and I hated Carlisle and Esme for saving me for this life. Finally I got what I wanted and a trick left me for dead in a Greenwich Village alley. As I lost consciousness, I thought, "At last."

But I woke up. Again, in the company of the Cullens. But this time I wasn't in the apartment in the city and I wasn't human anymore. And Alice was there.

Alice. My fellow soldier and my enemy. If I never see her face again it'll be too soon.

She tried so many times to explain to me what I had to do. All I could hear was that I couldn't be with you. I hated her.

This mating, this compulsion, must be a trick of vampire biology. All I know is that when I woke up this way I knew I needed you and that need has pulled at my insides every day for sixty years. I hated you for being the spike I couldn't pull out of my heart, for being the face I couldn't banish, the name I breathed. My fingers have itched to touch you when you were thousands of miles away. I saw your face when I closed my eyes and when my eyes were open they searched for you until they strained. I sniffed the air for your scent and licked my lips compulsively searching for your taste. I imagined your voice and pulled the memory of your every gesture and attempted to duplicate them in my imagination.

I couldn't even let you touch me in that cabin because I knew that I would never be able to leave.

Was it better for you to not know? The thought of what I had to give up made me insane and angry. It was how I fueled my hatred for Aro. How could I pretend for sixty years to be his loyal servant and then be prepared to rip his head off? The thought of what he would do to you if I didn't play my part fueled every second of it.

Alice explained to me what I had to do. I had to give you up, travel to Italy and spend the next sixty years in Aro's cage. I was the only one who could get close to him, she saw that he would be obsessed by the one mind he couldn't read. She spent weeks briefing me on my mission over and over, proving her abilities to me again and again. I screamed and left, raged at her, attacked her, begged her, cajoled her. I wanted her to find another way; I wanted to doubt her.

I even tried to kill her, as if that would help change the future.

I thought that surely there was a way to reduce my sentence, do what needed to be done faster. She proved to me over and over again that I had two choices; spend sixty years separated from you in servitude to her plan or spend the next six decades with you and then die at your side.

I would have died that very day for just an hour with you but _you_ deserved more than that. Not to mention that I was sentencing all of the Cullens to the same fate. Esme and Carlisle, the only loving parents I had ever had. Rosalie and Emmett, who had accepted me without question and would stand by me no matter what decision I made. There_ was_ only one decision to make.

I waited for you to come back. It was my last hope, that you would come back and that the words you would say to me wouldn't be the words Alice predicted. Then I would know that there was another choice, a third strand to our future.

Do you remember what you said? You said, "You made me an offer." It was exactly what Alice told me you would say, down to the inflection in your voice. I had to accept that she was right, that we were doomed.

I insisted that she not tell you we were mated. It didn't make any sense anyway. You were so perfect, so moral, so untouched and I was so debauched, so ruined. I had never believed in anything, never loved anything but freedom and heroin. In that way mating is like alchemy, isn't it? Mixing these disparate ingredients to make gold?

All I knew was that I had to leave you, drive you away, keep pushing you away, repulse you, reject you. That was the only way I could save you.

And Alice had to keep throwing me in your way, or your resolve would weaken. You would forget how much you hated me, you would forget my vileness. You would go to Italy, Aro would touch you, find out about Alice and it would all end _that_ way. We all had to play our parts perfectly and you didn't even know you were reading from a script.

But even in my heroic sacrifice I couldn't stay out of the gutter. I killed humans, I took a lover, I lied and fucked my way through the last six decades while you stayed as perfect as ever.

I couldn't even resist taking what I did from you in the cabin. I needed to touch you, I needed to taste you, but you were pure and unsullied and your first sexual experience should never have been a blow job from a hooker. I couldn't even resist defiling you in that way.

That's why I begged Marcus to destroy me, that's why I fought. I was meant to die decades ago. I did die, twice. I came back as the most unredeemable of creatures. How could you want this? It's a trick, a trap. No matter what the mating imperative tells us I can't be what you want, what you deserve. I don't know how to love, I only know how to deceive and destroy, no matter how badly I want to crawl inside you and stay there for eternity.

Redemption? I'm not even sure I believe in it. Do you?

^0^ ^0^ ^0^ ^0^ ^0^

_**Vision**_

It was a busy night for Tanner's. The "Music and Words of the Beat Generation" event had drawn some younger people, probably college students, but mostly it seemed to be an older crowd.

There were old hippies with long hair and sandals, middle-aged professor types with sports coats and jeans, young kids in skinny jeans and dark eyeglass frames. And then there were the two in the corner.

They were stunning, pale and somber when they entered. He was aloof, his reddish hair mussed and his dark suit hanging on a thin frame. He seemed to be going for a "period" look: wearing a thin, black tie and a white shirt, he looked like he could have been here in the 1950's.

She was dark-haired and small, with delicately beautiful features and a dark silk dress and a wool coat.

He slipped her coat off her shoulders stiffly, formally, and then stared for a moment at her back and bare arms before sliding into the booth in the corner next to her carefully, placing himself next to her without touching.

The bartender was positive that they were on a first date. They were so careful not to touch each other and they were so clearly anxious in each other's company, glancing at the other every few seconds. He sent a waitress over immediately, pitying them and hoping some alcohol would help.

A pianist got up on stage and played "'Round Midnight" and the woman's gaze dimmed a little as she listened to the music, her upper body swaying slightly.

The waitress decided that this was no first date. The way the man looked at her was adoring and intense, as if he was memorizing her face. They were clearly in love, or at least, he was. The dark-haired woman pulled her attention away from the performance long enough to order a drink. The waitress took their orders quickly and left without making small talk. She had the feeling they wanted to be left alone.

The NYU literature professor in the front row knew that he should have been paying attention to the retrospective, but the couple in the corner was fascinating. An actor got up to read from "On The Road" and the woman said a few quiet words to her companion, glancing at him…shyly? He pressed his lips together as if considering his response, but just then the waitress dropped off their drinks and his view was blocked. When the waitress left the professor could see that they were staring straight ahead again, as if avoiding each other's gazes.

The girlfriend of the actor who had been hired to read from "Naked Lunch" knew he was up soon and that she should be paying attention but the couple in the corner distracted her. Their otherworldly beauty was undeniable but what was especially poignant was their body language. The foot of space between them crackled with tension and every time one of them moved she was sure it would be to touch the other. How could they resist? She wished her boyfriend could see this, if he could duplicate that tension and the intense mix of emotions at the table he would be brilliant in his current play. The red-haired man said something quietly to his…lover? Wife? It was impossible to tell. The woman's face twisted into a look of sadness and apology and the man frowned, as if feeling regret for his words.

A five man jazz ensemble set up on the stage and began to play "Lester Leaps In" after an aging Beat historian explained that it was the inspiration behind Ginsberg's "Howl."

The twenty year-old college student - forced to be here by his professor - let his gaze travel around the room as he rolled his eyes at the jazz being played on stage. How could this stuff be described as "experimental" and "exciting"? It sounded like stuff his grandpa would listen to. Now the chick in the corner? _She_ was exciting. If the stiff sitting next to her wasn't interested, he certainly was. As he watched, hoping that maybe they were fighting, the woman said something to the man, wincing. He shook his head slightly and the woman reached out and touched what he could now see was a white scar on the man's cheekbone. The brunette stroked the scar apologetically. The man's eyes closed slightly at her touch and then he reached out and touched her bare upper arm. There was a similar scar on her arm and when he touched it she smiled wryly at her companion, the first smile anyone in the room had seen from her all evening. The student snorted, disgusted. Apparently they weren't breaking up.

An aging poet got up to read, "Howl" and the woman seemed to tense up again as the man spoke.

_"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by/madness, starving, hysterical, naked,/ dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn/looking for an angry fix..."_

The actor recited the staccato lines of the poem, his voice barking out the stanzas.

_"who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in/Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried, their/torsos night after night/with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares..."_

As the waitress watched, the man reached out and took her hand, looking at her for permission. She gave him a shy smile and turned her attention back to the stage.

_"who wandered around and around at midnight in the/railroad yard wondering where to go, and went,leaving no broken hearts..."_

The man let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulder as she tensed again. He looked down at her and stroked her shoulder as she listened to the poet.

A few more stanzas went by and then he reached out and touched her chin, turning her face to his, merely inches apart.

_"ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe…"_

The red-haired man leaned down and kissed her lightly. It didn't seem to the writer watching from the next booth to be a particularly passionate kiss; it seemed more like a comforting gesture. As the man pulled his face away the writer could see a look of wonder on the woman's face that took his breath away and his mind desperately spun thinking of ways to describe that look, short of taking a picture.

As the bartender watched, pleased that he had guessed correctly about it being their first date, the woman stretched up and kissed the young man back. This time the kiss became more passionate and when they parted they both seemed breathless and happy. The woman turned back to the stage with a slight smile and the man leaned down and nuzzled his face in her hair. The space between them was gone.

The aging poet finished up the poem on stage:

_"I'm with you in Rockland/in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-/journey on the highway across America in tears/to the door of my cottage in the Western night."_

In the midst of the applause, if by unspoken agreement, the couple got up and he helped her on with her coat, pausing as she turned around to face him to reach out and touch her cheek again.

They barely took their eyes off of each other as they walked out of the dimly lit club, hand in hand, into the night.

The bartender argued half-heartedly with the waitress about whether or not they were on a first date as they cleaned up that night, sweeping the floor and wiping down the tables. They sat down in the booth that the two had sat in and shared a drink. As their conversation trailed off the bartender leaned back and glanced around the old room again, increasingly making it's money off of it's history, and it was then he noticed that there were two old photographs missing from the wall.

**a/n: My apologies for abandoning the Beat poets for the epigram; Henry Rollins just said it so much better. A big endless, fawning "Thank You" to EverlastingMuse for beta'ing this and Liz3615 for her awesome cheer-leading, pre-reading and hand-holding. Thank you to everyone reading and reviewing and recc'ing this; it was neither an easy read nor a particularly "feel-good" one, so thanks for bearing with me. Xoxo JuJu**


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